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1802 CENTENNIAL "02 



OF 



HOME MISSIONS 



IN CONNECTION WITH THE ONE HUNDRED 

AND FOURTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 

OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

NEW YORK CITY, MAY 16-20, 1902 




PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 

1902 



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THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two CncMt* Rpcs'vptj 

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GMkftft ftyXXe No. 

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COPY B„ 



Copyright, 1902, by the Trustees of 

The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
School Work 



Published November t iqo2. 



PREFACE 



A hundeed years of organized home missions have 
been of so much account to the denomination, to the 
kingdom of Christ, and to this Republic, that the 
emphasis placed upon them at the meeting of the Gen- 
eral Assembly in May, in New York city, is abun- 
dantly justified. 

The occasion was regarded as of so much importance 
that the General Assembly waived the routine of its 
business for a day and a half to devote that time to a 
worthy celebration of the great event. That the history 
of Presby terianism in this country has had such bearing 
upon our national progress as to justify some form of 
national recognition was expressed in the fact that the 
President of the United States honored the occasion 
with his presence. 

The programme of the great meetings is herewith pre- 
sented to the Christian public. The impression which 
the great gatherings made upon those who were present 
can never wholly fade away. Only a small fraction, 
however, of the Presbyterians who w T ere rejoicing in the 



6 PREFACE 

occasion could hear the living voices of the speakers 
selected for the centennial exercises. That the vast 
multitudes of Presbyterians and other Christian people 
who could not be present may have an opportunity to 
share in the historic and memorable occasion , this vol- 
ume is now sent forth. The enthusiasm of great audi- 
ences is, of course, lacking in this presentation. But 
the historic facts which are here given, the sympathetic 
greetings of other boards and of other denominations, 
the tidings from home mission fields, extending from 
Porto Rico to Alaska, and the inspiring words of the 
chief magistrate of the nation pleading for national 
righteousness will not fail to evoke among Presbyterians 
an honorable pride in our Church and larger hopes for 
our future ; while to all to whom these messages shall 
come, of whatever denomination, there will be borne 
the value of Christian missions and Christian institu- 
tions as an integral part in the upbuilding of our great 
Republic. 

Charles L. Thompson. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

"TO THE ALLEGHENIES" 13 

Kev. Henry C. McCook, D.D., Sc.D. 
"FROM THE ALLEGHENIES TO THE KOCKIES" . . 53 

Kev. Samuee J. Niccoees, D.D., LL.D. 
"FKOM THE KOCKIES TO THE PACIFIC" 81 

Kev. Edgar, P. Hiee, D.D. 
"THE PAST YEAR" .109 

Kev. Richard S. Hoemes, D.D. 

ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF HOME 

MISSIONS 126 

Kev. John Dixon, D.D. 
THE SELF-SUPPORTING SYNODS 146 

Rev. Eben B. Cobb, D.D. 

HOME MISSIONS IN TEXAS 159 

Rev. Henry S. Littee, D.D. 

THE YUKON VALLEY 161 

Kev. M. Egbert Koonce, Ph.D. 

NORTHERN ALASKA'S NEED 163 

Rev. S. Haee Young, D.D. 
THE MORMON PROBLEM 166 

Rev. Sheedon Jackson, D.D. 

GREETINGS— FROM THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MIS- 
SIONS 171 

Rev. John D. Weles, D.D. 

FROM THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 180 

Rev. George D. Baker, D.D. 

FROM THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION AND SABBATH- 
SCHOOL WORK 185 

Hon. Robert N. Wielson. 

FROM THE BOARD OF MINISTERIAL RELIEF ... 192 
Hon. Robert H. Smith. 

FROM THE BOARD OF CHURCH ERECTION 196 

Rev. David Magie, D.D. 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FKOM THE BOAED FOE FEEEDMEN 199 

Eev. Henry T. McClelland, D.D. 

FEOM THE BOAED OF AID FOE COLLEGES .... 204 
Eev. Herrick Johnson D.D., LL.D. 

FEOM THE AMEEICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION 

SOCIETY 211 

Eev. W. C. P. Ehoades, D.D. 

FEOM THE CONGBEGATIONAL HOME MISSIONAEY 

SOCIETY 216 

Eev. J. B. Clark, D.D. 

FEOM THE MISSIONAEY SOCIETY OF THE METH- 
ODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 223 

Bishop E. G. Andrews, D.D. 

FEOM THE DOMESTIC AND FOEEIGN MISSIONAEY 
SOCIETY OF THE PEOTESTANT EPISCOPAL 

CHUECH IN THE U. S. A 228 

Eev. D. H. Greer, D.D. 

FEOM THE BOAED OF DOMESTIC MISSIONS OF THE 

EEFOEMED CHUECH IN AMEEICA 232 

Eev. James I. Vance, D.D. 

FEOM THE ALLIANCE OF EEFOEMED CHUECHES . 238 
Eev. William H. Eoberts, D.D., LL.D. 

EESPONSE BY THE MODEEATOE 243 

Eev. Henry van Dyke, D.D., LL.D. 

"THE NEW CENTUEY "— ADDEESS BY THE CHAIE- 

MAN 251 

Eev. D. Stuart Dodge, D.D. 
ADDEESS 257 

Theodore Eoosevelt, President of the United States. 

ADDEESS AT THE OYEEFLOW MEETING 264 

Theodore Eoosevelt, President of the United States. 

EESPONSE BY THE MODEEATOE 267 

Eev. Henry van Dyke, D.D., LL.D. 

A VISION OF THE FUTUEE 271 

Eev. Charles L. Thompson, D.D. 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 



Extract from the Minutes, May 16, 1902. 

The Committee on the Centennial Celebration of Home Mis- 
sions, through its Chairman, John E. Parsons, Esq., presented 
a programme of the celebration, which was accepted, approved 
and is as follows : 

Friday, May 16. 

All-Day Session — Annual Meeting of the Woman's Board, 

Central Presbyterian Church. 
4.30 p. M. : Eeception to the Assembly in the Presbyterian 

Euilding, 156 Fifth Avenue. 

Saturday, May 17. 
8.00 P. M. : Lecture : " Two Centuries of Presbyterianism," by 
the Eev. William C. Covert, of Saginaw, Mich., Fifth 
Avenue Church. 

Sunday, May 18. 
Home Mission sermons in the pulpits of Greater New York. 
3.00 P. M. : Popular Home Missionary meeting, Fifth Avenue 
Church. 

Monday, May 19. 

The Past Century. 
2.30 p. M. : Fifth Avenue Church, Eev. Wilson Phraner, D.D., 
presiding. 

1. Invocation. Eev. George F. McAfee, D.D., New 

York, N. Y. 

2. Hymn. 

3. Address—" To the Alleghenies," Eev. Henry C. McCook, 

D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. 

4. Hymn. 

9 



10 ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 

5. Address — "From the Alleghenies to the Rockies," Eev. 

Samuel J. Niccolls, D.D., LL.D., St. Louis, Mo. 

6. Music. 

7. Address — " From the Eockies to the Pacific," Eev. Edgar 

P. Hill, D.D., Portland, Oregon. 

8. Doxology. 

9. Benediction, Eev. Lyman Whitney Allen, D.D., Newark, 

N.J. 
7.30 P. M. : Conference of Home Missionaries, Central Church. 

Tuesday, May 20. 

The Past Year. 

10.00 A. M. : Fifth Avenue Church. 

1. Eeport of the Standing Committee on Home Missions. 

2. Address, Eev. Eichard S. Holmes, D.D., Pittsburg, Pa. 

3. Address, Eev. John Dixon, D.D., New York, N. Y. 

4. Music. 

5. Address, Bev. Eben B. Cobb, D.D., Elizabeth, N. J. 

6. Brief Addresses by Missionaries. 

7. Hymn. 

8. Benediction, Eev. Wilton Merle Smith, D.D., New 

York, N. Y. 

Fellowship Meeting. 
2.30 P. M. : Fifth Avenue Church. The Moderator of the Gen- 
eral Assembly presiding. 

1. Prayer, Eev. L. Mason Clarke, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

2. Music. 

3. Addresses by Eev. John D. Wells, D.D., Brooklyn, 

N. Y., representing the Board of Foreign Missions ; 
Eev. David Magie, D.D., Peterson, N. J., representing 
the Board of Church Erection ; Eev. George D. Baker, 
D.D., Philadelphia, Pa., representing the Board of 
Education ; Hon. EobertN. Willson, Philadelphia, Pa., 
representing the Board of Publication and S. S. Work ; 
E. H. Smith, Esq., Baltimore, Md., representing the 
Board of Ministerial Relief; Eev. Henry T. McClel- 



ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 11 

land, D.D., Pittsburg, Pa., representing the Board for 
Freedmen; Eev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., LL.D., Chi- 
cago, 111., representing the Board of Aid for Colleges. 

4. Hymn. 

5. Addresses by Rev. W. C. P. Rhoades, D.D., Brooklyn, 

N. Y., Chairman of Executive Board, the American 
Baptist Home Mission Society; Rev. J.B. Clark, D.D. , 
New York, N. Y., Senior Secretary, the Congregational 
Home Missionary Society ; Bishop E. G. Andrews, D.D., 
New York, N. Y., Missionary Society of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church ; Rt. Rev. Dr. William Croswell 
Doane, Albany, N. Y., and Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., 
of St. Thomas' Church, N. Y., Domestic and Foreign 
Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the U. S. A. ; Rev. James I. Yance, D.D., Newark, 
N. J., Board of Domestic Missions of the Reformed 
Church in America ; Rev. William Henry Roberts, 
D.D., LL.D., American Secretary Alliance of Re- 
formed Churches. 

6. Music. 

7. Prayer and Benediction, Rev. Thomas A. Nelson, D.D. 

Tuesday, May 20. 
The New Century. 
8.00 P. M. : Carnegie Hall, Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, D.D., Presi- 
dent of the Board of Home Missions, presiding. 

1. Hymn— " Ye Servants of God." 

2. Scripture Reading, Rev. Howard Agnew Johnston, D.D 

3. Prayer, Rev. Duncan J. McMillan, D.D. 

4. Address, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 

States. 

5. Hymn — "God Guard Columbia," written by Rev. 

Henry C. McCook, D.D. 

6. Address, by the Moderator of the Assembly. 

7. Hymn — " All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." 

8. Address, Rev. Charles L. Thompson, D.D. 



12 ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 

9. Hymn-—" My Country, 'Tis of Thee." 
10. Benediction, Eev. Henry S. Little, D.D. 

Tuesday Evening. 
8.00 P. M. : Central Presbyterian Church, Eev. George L 
Spining, D.D., presiding. 

1. Devotional Exercises, Kev. John Dixon, D.D. 

2. Addresses by the Moderator of the General Assembly ; 

Eev. S. Hall Young, D.D., of Alaska ; Eev. Milton 
E. Caldwell, D.D., of Porto Eico; Rev. Charles F. 
Eichardson, of Montana ; Eev. S. E. Wishard, D.D., 
of Utah. 

3. Benediction, Eev. Calvin A. Duncan, D.D., Knoxville, 

Tenn. 

Wednesday, May 21. 

2.00 P. M. : Woman's Board Conference of Workers, Central 
Church. 

Friday, May 23. 

8.00 P. M. : Fifth Avenue Church, Eev. J. Eoss Stevenson, 
D.D., presiding. Young People's Meeting in the 
interest of Home and Foreign Missions. Addresses 
by Eev. Graham Lee, of Korea; Eev. M. Egbert 
Koonce, Ph.D., of Alaska, and Mr. John Willis Baer. 

Extract from the Minutes/ May 23, 1902. 

Your Committee has also considered the question of the 
record in enduring form of the proceedings in connection with 
the celebration of the Centennial of Home Missions, and we 
recommend that the Board of Publication and Sabbath-school 
Work be directed to print and issue in permanent form the 
proceedings of May 19 and 20, 1902, as they may be furnished 
by the Secretary of the Board of Home Missions. Adopted. 

The above extracts are true copies of the Minutes in each 
case. 

Wm. Henry Eoberts, 

Stated Clerk. 



Monday Afternoon, May 19th, 

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
New York, N. Y. 



"THE PAST CENTURY" 



" TO THE ALLEGHENIES " 

THE ATLANTIC STATES: THE MOTHERLAND OF 
HOME MISSIONS 

BY THE 

KEY. HENEY G McCOOK, D. D., Sc. D., 
Philadelphia, Penna. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES: THE MOTHER- 
LAND OF HOME MISSIONS 

BY 

HENRY CHRISTOPHER McCOOK, D. D., Sc. D. 



Italian art is the product of two chief factors. 
One is the Italian himself; the other is the act of nature 
that set the marble of Carrara within his volcanic hills. 
So, in the centennial results that your Home Mission 
Board presents, two chief natural factors were concerned : 
one was the Home Evangelist; the other the human 
types whose grain and quality gave the material out of 
which the missionary in the field and the missioner in 
Assembly, presbytery, committee, and Board, could 
carve a character, a Church, and a commonwealth. We 
are thinking to-day of the home missionary and his 
heaven-inspired art. We must remember also the 
Carrara marble ; aye, and the volcanic forces that pro- 
duced it. We are to consider, first. 

I 

The Human Material on which Our Home 
Missionaries Wrought 

When the seventeenth century dawned, Europe was 
still in the throes of the Reformation, that great conflict 
for soul-liberty and for the sovereignty of God's word. 

15 



16 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Out of the hurly-burly there emerged a form which, to 
one part of Europe, seemed as captivating as the bride of 
the Canticles ; but to the other, dreadful as the woman of 
The Revelation — a destroyer and to be destroyed. That 
form was Presbytery. The Huguenots of France, the 
Reformed of Switzerland, of the Palatinate, of Hesse, 
of Brandenburg, of Holland, and of Scotland, had seated 
her in their cathedrals, and enthroned her in their chairs 
of state. The English Puritans wooed her lustily, and 
would have won but for the hostility of Elizabeth, who, 
toward that fair form, was a veritable virago rather than 
the " Good Queen Bess." 

Meanwhile, throughout all the century, North Amer- 
ica lay dim and mysterious in the far-away western 
ocean. Would this virgin world become a field wherein 
to transplant and propagate presbytery ? 

It was not until the second decade of the seventeenth 
century that English Independents made their mem- 
orable settlement at Plymouth. That was like the 
coming of migratory birds in springtime. Yesterday 
there was a pair ; to-day there is another. Next week 
the groves shall be vocal with their songs. In 1607 
there was a Jamestown; in 1614 a New Amsterdam; 
in 1620 a Plymouth; in 1630 a Dorchester; in 1638 a 
New Sweden. Thenceforth the gates of the new hemi- 
sphere were entered all along the coast, and the century 
closed (1682) upon William Penn's "Holy Experiment." 

So came the eighteenth century, most memorable and 
fateful in the development of our country and of our 
Church. The opening of the seventeenth century had 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 17 

witnessed the planting of Scotch Presbyterians in Ulster 
upon the forfeited estates of the Earls of Tyrone and 
Tyrconnel. 

The " undertakers " of these new plantations were 
fortified by refugees from the Stuart persecutions. The 
intolerance of the English Church and government 
fastened upon Irish Presbyterians and Roman Catholics 
alike the yoke of Anglican bishops. These gentlemen 
are harmless and delightful personages now, with their 
shovel hats and knee breeehes, their high scholarship and 
higher churchmanship, and highest views — and narrow 
as high, as imaginary lines must always be — of a sole 
apostolic succession for their ministry. But they were 
hard and serious facts in those not very distant days, 
and down to the period of the American and French 
Revolutions. Atrocious penal laws harried the native 
Irish Roman Catholics. Irritating and oppressive re- 
strictions and requirements oppressed the Presbyterians. 
They were excluded from office ; forbidden to be married 
by their own pastors ; denied commissions in the army 
and other positions, except under odious test oaths; 
insulted and ill-treated in many ways. 

Meanwhile yonder, in the New World, there called 
to this persecuted folk the sweet voice of freedom to 
worship God in their own way, the promise of personal 
independence, and the ownership of fair lands. Our 
fathers followed the voice ! America was their land of 
promise. British ships groaned with the loads of emi- 
grants who crowded across seas. 

Those Ulster Presbyterians became the hardy settlers 



18 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

of our southern and central frontier, and the brave op- 
posers of Indian encroachment ; for they were an adven- 
turous and warlike folk, though well fashioned for the 
substantial arts of peace. They rushed en masse into 
the Continental Army, to win once and forever religious 
and civil freedom from a people and a system that had 
given them good ground for suspicion and resentment. 
The century closed upon their full success. The colo- 
nies were free, and constituted a nation of freemen. 
Their beloved presbytery had developed its supreme 
court, the General Assembly, which neither king nor 
prelate could henceforth molest. Into and under that 
General Assembly came the New England Puritans, 
especially of Connecticut and northern New York, and 
formed, with the Ulstermen, the chief constituency 
and the controlling element. Thus dawned the nine- 
teenth century, and that era and act whose centenary we 
commemorate. 

It was a sifted people that God set upon those virgin 
shores : a people tried in the furnace of affliction and 
persecution for conscience^ sake. By the very fire that 
tried them and the pressure of their oppression they were 
given that fine grain that made them fitting material for 
the artist hand of the Angel of Providence. 

This was the raw material, the historic background 
upon which our picture of American missions must be 
drawn. But the raw material was at once exposed to 
violent tests. Novel social forces played upon it and 
molded it into new forms, finer or grosser, fair or gro- 
tesque, noble or depraved. What were some of these 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 19 

forces ? The shock of hereditary opinions and customs, 
often hard set and stubbornly held, as the confluent 
streams of life from many diverse nations met and inter- 
mingled ; the struggle to adjust new conditions to Old 
World ideas and habits which still clung to them like half- 
cast shells upon molting spiders ; the hunger and struggle 
for land and for a living ; the restless spirit of change 
that drove families west and still farther westward ; the 
untoward effect of watching against and combat with a 
lurking savage foe, which developed traits of cunning, 
fierceness, and cruelty, as well as of courage and adroit- 
ness ; the pressure and exigencies, both contractile and 
expansive spirituality, of founding new communities — 
all these were factors for good or evil that wrought and 
had wrought upon the American people a century ago. 
Conditions created character ; character reacted upon 
conditions ; and there lay the whole complex and hetero- 
geneous mass, to be kneaded into homogeneous society, 
and molded and fixed into the image of Christ and his 
Church. The new American States of a hundred years 
ago might be compared to a solution of precious metal 
in the chemist's retort, ready for the reagent that should 
separate the gold from the dross. That precipitant was 
the religion of Jesus Christ, and the work of the home 
missionary was to cast it into the solution. 

II 

Difficulties Overcome by the Home Missionary 

If we would fairly grasp the degree of honor due the 

home missionary fathers and founders of the Church, 



20 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

we must reckon up some of the difficulties which they 
overcame in achieving success. There was — 

1. THE DETEKIOEATING EFFECT OF THE STKUGGLE FOE 
EXISTENCE 

The people were scattered far apart along our wide 
frontier, with vast reaches of virgin forest and prairie 
lying beyond them. Between the several columns of 
migration, which were being thrust in wedge-like masses 
into the wilderness, lay also the forest primeval. The 
sparse settlements were gathered round small hamlets, 
most of whose houses were rude log cabins painfully 
erected by the solitary pioneers, or built by the common 
toil of the community at cabin-raisings, which were 
usually occasions for a frolic. At morning the house 
and its furniture lay latent within the forest trees. At 
nightfall it was a human habitation, with table, bunk, 
benches and stools, and rustic brackets for rifles, and 
pegs for the settlers scant stock of clothes. It is not 
far from the truth to say that a century ago a moiety of 
the people of our Union dwelt in such primitive huts as 
these. 

Their modes of living were as primitive as their 
houses. Clothing was made of home-grown wool and 
flax, spun and woven and sewed by the women. Money 
was rarely seen. Traffic was a system of barter. The 
farmers exchanged their products for the few articles 
that the trader had to sell in his frontier department 
store, and he in turn sent his barter, as he had received 
his goods, by pack-horse trains or wagons to distant 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 21 

centers of trade ; or, if convenient to rivers, the flat boat 
and the ark floated his accumulations to the mouth of 
the Mississippi. 

There is a social evolution of retardation and of 
degradation as well as the reverse. It was a startling 
change from the life of New England, or the life of 
Ulster, or Scotland, or Holland, or Germany, or France, 
into which the emigrants to the borders of America 
were suddenly thrust. Many of them were so firmly 
grounded in the principles in which they had been bred 
that they kept them untarnished amid the most un- 
friendly environment. The first voice of the missionary 
found them willing and eager to drop into the old paths 
of duty and devotion. 

"With the multitude it was otherwise. The struggle 
for existence levied upon every faculty and force of 
mind and body. Alienation from established influ- 
ences and from the ordinances of religion left the spirit- 
ual nature unnourished. It grew flabby, decadent ; it 
was atrophied at last. Habits, left without the braces 
and guards of a settled life, swung away sharply tangent 
to the early use and wont of religious and moral restraint. 
The deterioration of the frontier settlers was a subject 
of frequent anxiety to the presbyteries, synods, and 
assemblies of early days. They mourned the widely 
spread infidelity ; the indifference to and neglect of 
religion ; the drunkenness, dueling, gambling, profanity, 
fighting, and lust that kept in a ferment of moral filthi- 
ness and social disorder the long line of frontier reaching 
from the Carolinas to the Ohio. A type of character 



22 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

described by its possessors as " half-horse, half-alligator, 
rip-roaring, fire-eating, whip my weight in wildcats" 
dominated many sections. 

That type has persisted. Our later missionaries knew 
something of it, and still know, although our generation 
is seeing the passing of the old-time frontier. But the 
rapidity with which modern civilization sweeps over 
modern border settlements gives such aberrant forms 
of society a far more evanescent life than in those 
earlier times. True, the day was to come — indeed, the 
day had already dawned upon that Assembly — when a 
power mightier than all bands of iniquity should sweep 
along that border like the " rushing mighty wind " of 
Pentecost, and revolutionize the character of the people. 
But ere the great revival of 1800 and until its divine 
work of reconstruction had been wrought, the absorbing 
struggle for existence, the greed for land, the unlicensed 
freedom of the frontier, the unchecked carnival of 
depravity fostered by demoralized soldiers, and the out- 
casts and criminals of Europe and the East who had 
fled for refuge to western solitudes, reared an appalling 
barrier against the holy toils of the missionary. 

2. OPEEATING UPON SHIFTING COMMUNITIES 

Moreover, it must be remembered that the old-time 
evangelists were operating not upon settled, but upon 
shifting, communities. Their gospel armory must be 
trained to shoot upon the wing. A comparison of the 
first census in 1790 with that of 1800 will show that a 
large part of our population was in a state of flux. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 23 

When the first General Assembly met in 1789 the 
whole region from western Pennsylvania to the Mis- 
sissippi, and from the Kentucky border northward to 
the Great Lakes, was practically uninhabited by white 
men. The census of 1790 gave that vast territory, 
now the heart of the nation, a population of 4280 — a 
twentieth-century village. 

Ere the nineteenth century dawned, the westward 
drift of population had begun. New England over- 
flowed into New York, and again pushing on, with 
the restless impulse of destiny by which nature accom- 
plishes the occupancy of the earth and the distribution 
of species, the migratory wave spread itself into northern 
Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio. There it paused 
and overspread the Valley of the Allegheny and the 
" Western Reserve," until, like a mountain lake under 
a spring freshet, it poured over its bounds and swept on 
westward. 

Lower down, the stream of emigrants overflowed cen- 
tral Pennsylvania, swelled over the Alleghenies, and 
was distributed northward and southward along the 
Ohio, and in the central valleys of the Buckeye State. 
Ohio was then the frontier, that " greater East " which 
is now the middle West. There, on that early day, one 
could feel the pulse-beat of the Eastern States, the heart 
of the new Republic, sending forth its best blood to 
vitalize and nourish the nation's extremities. 

Farther south the tide moved from the Atlantic 
States westward and southwestward. The seaboard 
was monopolized by the great planters, and the landless 



24 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

settlers were forced inward. The West had already 
begun to gain at the expense of the East. The popula- 
tion of Kentucky, the fifteenth State (received in 1791), 
was greater than that of Delaware, or Rhode Island, or 
Georgia, or Maryland, or New Hampshire, or New 
Jersey, and yet numbered only 221,000. 

The record of a decade's growth in Oklahoma was 
almost paralleled by that of Kentucky a hundred years 
ago. The population of Tennessee, the latest born of 
the States (received 1796), exceeded both Delaware and 
Rhode Island. In the Ohio territory, which before 
Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794, was almost a 
wilderness inhabited only by Indians, there were 45,363 
settlers. Indiana Territory had 6000, the Mississippi 
Territory, 9000, and the cry was, " still they come!" 

To follow this flitting multitude into the wilderness, 
over forest trails and mountain paths and wild lakes 
and unbridged rivers, to search out and tend the scat- 
tered and wandering flock of God, was a task that 
might have taxed the strongest and best organized 
forces. It must have seemed most formidable to the 
few and loosely organized churches of the Atlantic slope 
a hundred years ago. It added to the difficulty that in 
many cases ere the molding hand of the missionary had 
well begun the work of shaping or restoring pious 
character, the restless subjects, stirred by rumor or 
dream of some new Eldorado, moved on still farther 
west. Yet, still onward moved in their trail the un- 
daunted missionary ; for the Empire whose westward 
course he pursued was the Eternal Kingdom of Christ ! 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 25 

3. THE WEAK AND SCATTERED BATTLE LINE 

Again, consider the base of supplies from which were 
drawn the men and the means for evangelizing these 
ever shifting, yet rapidly swelling, new settlements. 
You must eliminate from your minds the impression of 
present conditions, and put your thought, if possible, 
within the setting of a century ago. In all New York, 
in the two synods covering that State, there were 66 
ministers, of whom 44 were settled as pastors or stated 
supplies. There were about 90 churches, of which 36 
were organizations without pastoral or other charge. 

On a map of the United States put 90 dots of blue 
along New York's southeastern counties, clustered more 
closely upon Manhattan and Long Islands. Thence let 
them straggle up the Hudson, thinning out into the 
central and northern valleys, and diminishing into a 
point in the then wilderness of the Genesee, You will 
have here an objective illustration of what a scant show- 
ing our Church made even in one of its strongholds 
in 1802. 

On the remainder of your map put 460 blue dots, 
more than half of which should be but the faintest 
specks, in token of the nebulous character of the vacant 
churches they represent. Let them range along the 
Atlantic Seaboard, from New England to the Carolinas, 
with four broken lines of color straggling westward and 
northwestward into the wilderness. You will have an 
object lesson of the weakness of this great Communion 
a hundred years ago ; nay, of the three great Churches 
popularly known as the Northern, the Southern, and 



26 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

the Cumberland Presbyterian, which were then all 
included within one fold. "With the exception of a 
few points scattered along the Ohio River and within 
the valleys of Kentucky and Tennessee, and a few 
penetrating the interior of the Ohio territory, your dots 
of blue would all be within the thirteen original States. 
This would indicate the actual aggressive force that lay 
behind the missionary outposts pushed into the frontier. 
It was indeed a " far-flung battle line," and thin and 
broken, almost separate from its base, and set in the 
face of obstacles that would have daunted men of 
ordinary courage and faith. 

To-day, if you would make an outline map of that 
Synod of New York whose representatives sat in the 
Assembly of 1802, you must divide the Empire State 
into 30 presbyteries, with 902 blue dots for her 
churches instead of 90 ; with 184,000 communicant 
members instead of 4000; 181,000 Sunday-school 
children, and over half a million worshiping adherents, 
officered by 6000 elders and deacons, and honorable 
women not a few (4195 elders and 1472 deacons), and 
a ministerial force of pastors, evangelists, and licentiates 
of 1357. The converts last year (1901) were 8330; 
twice the total membership of the entire State a hun- 
dred years ago. 

Back of this splendid array of members and leader- 
ship you must count a total money contribution of three 
and three-quarter millions, of which nearly one and one- 
quarter millions were for the propagation of the gospel 
and for reported Christian benevolence, besides a vast 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 27 

unreported sum given by members of our churches to 
the general charities which they largely support. 

Turning from the single State of New York to the 
United States, and omitting from the count our Southern 
and Cumberland sisters, your 550 blue dots which 
represented the churches of a century ago would be 
multiplied fourteenfold (7779). A ministerial force 
of 8000 pastors and evangelists (and 917 candidates) 
leads the worship, and the Christian work of over 
a million (1,025,388) communicants, and yet more 
(1,056,110) Sunday-school scholars, representing a host 
of worshipers and adherents estimated at five millions. 
If you allow on this latest map a place for all reported 
religious contributions, the sum-total would be nearly 
($16,834,376) seventeen millions ! of which three and 
a quarter millions ($3,176,593) were for purely mission- 
ary objects. Of this you may set aside $2,268,854 for 
various home missionary purposes, of which $1,252,159 
is for home missions as now differentiated from the 
earlier conceptions, and $907,739 for foreign missions. 
Add about one-third to these figures for the Southern 
and Cumberland Churches. Surely the fathers of 1802 
were building wisely ; and although we can hardly 
believe that the most sanguine among them could have 
pictured the reality as it exists to-day, we cannot doubt 
that the eye of faith and hope penetrated the future, 
and saw in vision " the handful of corn/' scattered by 
them along the wilderness paths, waving "like the 
forest of Lebanon." Will the next century show a 
proportionate increase — duly and fully and progressively 



28 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

proportionate to the ministers. Church officers, commu- 
nicants, wealth, and opportunities of to-day ? Will we 
of this generation and this Assembly as faithfully meet 
our responsibility and do our duty as did our fathers of 
1802? 

4. THE DEPBESSING NATIONAL ENVIEONMENT 
In weighing the actions of our Church fathers Ave 
should not forget the national danger and disgrace 
which must have overshadowed their spirits and 
checked their energies. It was a depressing period in 
our national history. Recall your knowledge of the 
first decade of the American Republic. As the eight- 
eenth century closed, the country's condition was 
pitiable. The people were impoverished by the long, 
fierce revolutionary struggle, whose heroes, the " ragged 
Continentals," were, if possible, more ragged in peace 
than in war. Their hard-earned paper money was 
valueless, and the proverb, still prevalent, fifty years 
ago, " not worth a Continental," indicated the condition 
of the discredited currency. The States, unused to a 
national harness, w T ere galled and fretted under it ; and 
the old colonial jealousies and bickerings were revived, 
threatening disruption ere the seams of the Union had 
been well closed. There was an English faction that 
clung to aristocratic ideas and affiliation. There was a 
strong and growing French faction, in sympathy with 
the radical wing of the French Revolution, organized 
into mimic Jacobin clubs called " Democratic societies," 
which subsequently formed a popular basis for the old 
Republican party. A western frontier, as wide as the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 29 

continent, was threatened at every point by Indian 
savages. The Mississippi River, the southwestern and 
the sole practicable outlet of the frontier, so far from 
flowing " unvexed to the sea," was held at its mouth by 
a then imperious and supercilious Spain. When, subse- 
quently, the Louisiana Territory was yielded to France, 
Spain's West Indian officials bombarded our southeastern 
coast with ceaseless insults. From Maine to the Caro- 
linas stretched a vast seacoast whose nakedness was 
guarded by what, judged by modern standards, was a 
bare yacht club of sailing vessels called a navy. France, 
vexed that she could not make " a nose of dough " of 
her former American ally, bullied and browbeat the 
Government into an unofficial war. England insulted 
our flag and impressed our sailors on every sea, until in 
sheer desperation we were driven at last into the war 
of 1812, a humiliating chapter in our history, bright- 
ened only by the superb valor and skill of our little 
navy, and the victory of Jackson at New Orleans. 
Even the Algerine pirates of the Mediterranean levied 
blackmail upon our commerce with contemptuous indif- 
ference. 

Without money ; without credit ; without honor and 
standing among the nations ; derided, insulted, snubbed, 
threatened, robbed, we had nothing but land — " oceans 
of land " — and indomitable pluck and exuberant faith 
in our manifest destiny. It is not strange that under 
such conditions Alexander Hamilton, possessed by the 
theory that the Union could not be regarded as stable 
until it had suppressed some domestic revolution or 



30 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

united in some successful foreign war, should have 
seized upon the so-called " Western Insurrection " in 
the Pennsylvania frontiers as an occasion for a spectacu- 
lar demonstration to the world of the power of the new 
government. 

All this must be remembered if you would justly com- 
pare your own era and acts with the times and deeds 
of our Church fathers. All this must be considered if 
you would weigh in a just balance the characters and 
achievements of the heroes of that evangelistic army 
of occupation and conquest of the American frontier. 

Ill 

The High Quality of Pioneer Mission Workers 

These were some of the difficulties ; there were some 
favoring conditions. The progress of home missions 
was favored by the quality of the men who led its host 
both in the office and on the field. We put them in 
the same category, for in merit and efficiency and in 
title to honor just history may not separate the one 
class of workers from the other. They were a product 
of conditions of which great minds seem to be a fruitage. 
Vast wars, and high commotions, and extended com- 
munal fermentations and national revolutions react 
strongly upon those mysterious psychical and physio- 
logical conditions that control quality in the manhood 
of a succeeding generation. The American Revolution 
was followed by an intellectual and spiritual palen- 
genesis of the nation. The evening twilight of the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 31 

eighteenth century saw the birth of Irving, Cooper, 
Halleck, Prescott, Bryant, and Bancroft. The dawning 
decades of the nineteenth century welcomed Willis, 
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Hawthorne, and Poe. 
These leaders in the literary field marked time for the 
common ranks of American manhood and womanhood. 
They were types of their times and generation. 

As in letters and in other spheres, so was it in the 
Church. It was an era of high mental quickening. 
Nerves were tense, tingling with the new vigor of the 
awakened age and surcharged with life. Men of high 
and fine qualities were to the fore. Young men were 
double-winged with vital force and old men renewed 
their youth. The Church felt this surge of the great 
sea of humanity and rose and rode upon its crest. 

The men who consecrated themselves to the duty of 
evangelizing America were not inferior in natural gifts 
to those who shone in letters and politics. Man for 
man, talent for talent, they were the equals of their fel- 
lows ; and if their greatness has not been acknowledged 
it is because of that obliquity of vision which is apt to 
set secular above spiritual history, and which has left 
the knowledge of our Church's worthiest men and 
worthiest actions to be buried underneath the debris of 
the past, almost beyond the hope of historic resurrec- 
tion. Against such injustice the voice of your Presby- 
terian Historical Society has cried for half a century, 
for to-day marks its Jubilee Year. 

The Church and the cause owe an incalculable debt 
to the fine ability, the splendid optimism, the quenchless 



32 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

courage, the high consecration, the pure evangelical zeal, 
and the superior leadership of the early presbyters, min- 
isters and elders alike, of the original thirteen States. 
Necessarily it fell to them both to plan and to push the 
campaign for continental evangelization and to supply 
the men for the service. 

Then they had agents for the work of the highest and 
finest caliber. Call the roll of the home missionary 
heroes and their no less heroic wives, who broke ground 
for Christian faith and evangelization on the frontiers 
of the original Colonies and the middle West. They 
are all children of the East ; nurtured in and sent forth 
from the Motherland of Home Missions — the States of 
the Atlantic slope. This work their successors in the 
ever-expanding West received by good heredity, and in 
their hands the standard was not allowed to droop or 
falter ; but the initiative, the creative purpose, the forma- 
tive plans and their execution must be credited to the 
Atlantic States. 

President Roosevelt, in his Winning of the West, 
has given this graphic pen picture of one of these heroic 
knights of the Evangel : " His name was Samuel Doak. 
He came from New Jersey, and had been educated at 
Princeton. Possessed of the vigorous energy that marks 
the true pioneer spirit, he determined to cast his lot 
with the frontier folk. He walked through Maryland 
and Virginia, driving before him an old ' flea-bitten 
gray ' horse, loaded with a sackful of books, crossed the 
Alleghenies, and came down along blazed trails to the 
Holston settlements. The hardy people among whom 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 33 

he took up his abode were able to appreciate his learning 
and religion as much as they admired his adventurous, 
indomitable temper; and the stern, hard, God-fearing 
man became a most powerful influence for good through- 
out the whole formative period of the Southwest." 

He founded the first church in that cradle spot of 
Tennessee, a log house built near Jonesboro in 1777 
and christened " Salem Church." More than that, he 
built the first log high school, which developed into 
Washington College, Tennessee, the first educational 
institution in the Southwest. No wonder our virile 
'President's heart warmed toward such a strenuous char- 
acter as Missionary Doak. Aye, they were mm, those 
early home missionaries, full men, tested by the most 
exacting mensuration ! Mr. Roosevelt's description is 
typical. It fits hundreds of home missionaries of our 
pioneer days, and of every decade in the hundred years 
succeeding. The history of home missions finely illus- 
trates the truth of George Whitefield's epigrammatic 
argument to John Witherspoon when urging him to 
accept the call to America : " Every gownsman in the 
Colonies is worth a legion!" The trained gownsmen, 
the educated ministers of our " Church in the Wilder- 
ness," were a veritable " Tenth Legion " in Christian 
valor, devotion, and success. 

That century-old type is persistent. Professor Brum- 
baugh, late Commissioner of Education in Porto Rico, 
in an address given a week ago in your speaker's 
church in Philadelphia, paid a well-deserved tribute 
to the character of one of our missionaries in the field 



34 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

that lies farthest toward the sunrise of all our home 
missions. 

" I cannot quite forgive the Presbyterians," said Pro- 
fessor Brumbaugh, " for removing from Porto Rico 
such a man as Dr. Green. I have heard him preach to 
thousands of peons, who crowded round him and hung 
with breathless interest upon his words. I have seen a 
whole neighborhood transformed by his apostolic labors. 
Their shack houses that reeked with filth, where goats 
and hogs herded with men, women, and children, were 
changed as by magic into clean, white-washed human 
homes, brightened and sweetened by flowers, and sanc- 
tified by a new-born piety, and dedicated to a higher 
and purer family life." That was a fine testimony from 
a worthy man to a noble pioneer missionary of our 
eastern insular frontier. 

Those men of 1802 and their faithful wives were old 
fashioned in their views and utterances of Bible truths. 
Yet they lived and wrought their duty after a fashion 
that never grows old, for they maintained and illustrated 

the eternallv new facts of Christian love and zeal for the 

«/ 

highest good of the world. They clung to the old con- 
fessional words " goodness " and " mercy " and " com- 
passion " in presenting the divine love. But never did 
men and women more thoroughly than they interpret, 
in their lives of single-hearted devotion to Christian 
service, the fundamental law of Christ that requires us 
to love our neighbor as ourselves. If to spend their 
days in toil and their nights in watching ; to endure 
hardship and perils in the wilderness, in the forest, in 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 35 

the cabin, in the face of savage Indians and hostile or 
unsympathetic countrymen ; if to be often in hunger, 
and always in poverty ; to burn with fever, and shiver 
with ague, and ache with rheumatism ; if to separate 
themselves from the delights of civilization and the 
haunts of learning ; to labor much and to earn little ; to 
give forth their whole energy, skill, care, and culture, to 
elevate, bless, and save their fellows, and at last to die in 
penury and leave their widows and orphans a legacy to 
Providence, — if all that be to know and feel and teach 
and live the truth that " God is love," and that man's 
highest duty is to love God wholly and to love one's 
neighbor as himself, then, Moderator and brethren, those 
old-fashioned, doctrinal-preaching, Catechism-teaching 
evangelizers of the American wilderness are not un- 
worthy examples for the men and women of this gen- 
eration. Still they are teachers of that charity, " the 
greatest thing in the world," at whose feet we, even in 
this age, whose glory is its great charities and whose 
banner cry is love, may humbly sit, and whose heads 
we may crown with the blessing of Abu-ben-Adam. 
Their life-long career was a mission of loving helpful- 
ness in saving, civilizing, and uplifting their fellow-men. 
We do not like, perhaps, their ways of putting Bible 
truth, and their lack of elasticity in certain methods and 
forms. We are not in sympathy with the old country 
manners and seventeenth century methods which clung 
to some of them. But look at their lives of holy and 
unselfish and loving devotion, often even unto death, to 
the sublime duty of planting the seeds of Christian faith, 



36 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

holiness, and love in that wilderness land. It is enough ! 
Said Chillingworth, " The Bible is the meaning of the 
Bible." So, of those noble heroes of gospel charity, we 
declare that their doctrine is the meaning of their doc- 
trine ; their history is the meaning of their history. 
And do you ask what that meaning is ? Behold the 
order, the law, the prosperity, the virtue, the happiness 
of those States and communities wherein they toiled. 
It is the " monument, more enduring than brass," of 
those home missionary men and women who loved God 
supremely and loved their neighbors as themselves. 

IV 

Early Missionary Spirit of the Church 

The work of missions was not new in the Presby- 
terian Church even a century ago. In his sermon yes- 
terday Moderator van Dyke called this year the "one 
hundredth anniversary of the marriage of the Church 
to home missions." We will not deny the banns, nor 
challenge the figure of speech ; but we must claim, at 
least, that the, parties were engaged, and as " good as 
married," more than a hundred years before the wedding. 
From the beginning ours was a missionary Church. The 
fathers and founders had a good grip of the situation, 
for they all were home evangelists, from Denton and 
Makemie down. In the original " Presbytery," in the 
mother " General Synod," in the two synods into which 
it was divided, and in the reunion " Synod of New York 
and Philadelphia," the matter of missions, including 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 37 

Indian evangelization, was the chief concern at every 
meeting. 

The first General Assembly of 1789 enjoined its four 
synods — Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey, 
Virginia, and the Carolinas — to provide and recom- 
mend each two missionaries, and to take up collections 
to support them in the field. Young ministers and 
licentiates, as well as settled pastors, were frequently 
sent forth on what Dr. Ashbel Green called " their ex- 
cursions of benevolence," into the adjoining regions and 
distant parts. These tours of duty long continued to be 
the prevailing custom. 

The act of 1802 was a step forward in organization 
not in spirit. It created a Standing Committee of 
Missions, with substantially the powers and duties of 
the present Board of Home Missions. Like the " Board 
of Missions," into which it was constituted in 1816, 
it really embraced the work of evangelizing both the 
whites and the heathen Indians as well as the negro 
slaves and freedmen. Not until thirty-five years there- 
after was a distinctively Foreign Mission Board organ- 
ized. But in the early stages of the Assembly's work 
missions to the heathen were limited to the Indian 
tribes of North America. It is to be noted that the 
title given the new organization was not the Standing 
Committee of Home Missions, but " the Standing Com- 
mittee of Missions." 

Within the powers invested in that committee lay in 
germ all the boards of the Presbyterian Church, as now 
constituted, which deal with the work of evangelization. 



38 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

home missions occupied the foremost place. One of 
the first acts of the Standing Committee was to continue 
the work of evangelizing the colored people. One of 
its most successful missionaries was a minister of color, 
the Rev. John Chavis ; and of the white race was Dr. 
John H. Rice, who, in the spirit of the early apostles, 
and of recent missionaries to Africa, devoted himself 
to his colored brethren in the slave States. Therein 
also was included the work of the Board of Publication ; 
for the newly appointed committee stimulated and 
directed the distribution of religious literature. It con- 
sidered also the work of ministerial education. It was, 
in fact, the one great evangelizing agency of the Church, 
out of which, by gradual and necessary development, 
all its separate boards have been evolved. This cen- 
tenary, commemorative of the formation of that Stand- 
ing Committee, is therefore an event that concerns the 
entire Church and all its now distinct evangelizing 
organs and agents. 

The formal origin of that act of 1802 issued from a 
recommendation made by a body whose existence and 
functions are rarely thought of and but little known, 
although it carries the corporate life of our Church. 
There was laid before the Assembly " a communication 
from the Trustees of the General Assembly" proposing 
the formation of "a standing committee for financial 
purposes," and suggesting several arrangements for 
securing and managing the missionary funds. This led 
to a motion that the Assembly commit the general man- 
agement of missionary business to a standing committee. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 39 

The motion was referred to a committee consisting of 
Dr. Ashbel Green, Rev. Azel Backus, Rev. Nathaniel 
Irwin, ministers ; and ruling elders, the Hon. Eben- 
ezer Hazard and Colonel John Bayard. It is worthy 
of notice that Mr. Backus, who was one of the two dele- 
gates from the General Association of Connecticut, was 
appointed to such an important place, and thus helped 
to shape the action which is commemorated to-day. 
The presence of a Congregational minister on this com- 
mittee was in accord with that spirit which more than 
two hundred years ago (1690) united the Presbyterians 
and the independents of England in evangelistic work, 
and led to the Saybrook platform of New England 
in 1708. 

V 

Personnel of the Commissioners 

The General Assembly of 1802 met in the First 
Church of Philadelphia, the old sanctuary on Market 
Street, built in 1704, rebuilt in 1793, and occupied for 
116 years. It was not as large as many of our modern 
presbyteries, having only 48 commissioners — 33 minis- 
ters and 15 elders — not a twelfth part of the Assembly 
of to-day. These men came from only seven States : 
Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Dela- 
ware, Virginia, and South Carolina. A striking con- 
trast this with its successor of 1902, which embraces 
commissioners from nearly every State and Territory of 
the Republic, from the District of Columbia, and from 
many foreign countries representing our world-wide work 



40 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

of heathen evangelization. But in the character of its 
members and the influence of some of its acts it was a 
notable body. Its roll contained the names of nine men 
who had been elected or were " elected " to be moder- 
ators of the General Assembly. These men were John 
Rodgers (1789), Nathaniel Irwin (1801), Azel Roe 
(1802), Philip Milledoler (1808), James Richards (1808), 
Eliphalet Nott (1811), James Inglis (1814), Ashbel 
Green (1824), and Francis Herron (1827). Among its 
elder commissioners were such honored men as Colonel 
John Bayard, Postmaster-general Ebenezer Hazard, 
Isaac Snowden, and Senator Jonathan Elmer. 

1. THE ASSEMBLY'S MISSIONAEY LEADEE— DR. GEEEN 

The commissioner entitled to the first honor in the 
Missionary Centennial is Ashbel Green. If any man 
deserves the title of father of organized home missions 
in the Presbyterian Church it is he. He was then 
(1802) forty years old, in the middle prime of his man- 
hood ; and his ability and zeal in the cause marked him 
as the fitting chairman of the committee to put into 
shape the proposed action to systematize the Church's 
missionary work. Dr. Green had a commanding bodily 
presence, a florid complexion, regular features, promi- 
nent aquiline nose. But the great feature of his face 
was his eye — full, dark, brilliant, imperative, gleaming, 
underneath shaggy eyebrows. He was a gentleman of 
the old school, the school in which Washington, his 
friend, had been cultured. Almost to the end of his 
life he retained the clerical wig and queue common to 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 41 

the gentlemen of his period, and as he moved through 
the streets of Philadelphia his dignified bearing, his 
antique and stately manners impressed with reverence 
those whom he met. He filled with distinguished merit 
every position to which he was called. As a writer and 
one of the pioneer editors of the Church he wielded a 
ready and forcible pen, and won a wide influence. In 
the Church courts he was a faithful presbyter and a 
wise leader. As president for over ten years of Prince- 
ton College he contributed largely to the permanent 
success of that institution, and earned as an educator 
the good degree that he attained in other fields. As a 
patriot, as a scholar, as a preacher, as an educator, as a 
writer and editor, as an ecclesiastic, and as the father 
of organized missions, he was preeminent among the 
men of his period, and takes rank as one of the great 
men of the Presbyterian Church. He was identified 
with its work from the beginning, and in every relation 
proved himself a devoted son and servant during his 
long career. 

Of the Standing Committee of Missions, which the 
Assembly of 1802 adopted upon his report, he was 
made the first chairman, and so continued for ten and 
a half years, until he left Philadelphia for Princeton. 
As the committee had neither secretary nor executive 
committee, the laboring oar was in his hands. When 
in 1822 he returned to Philadelphia from Princeton he 
found the Board of Missions, which had been created 
in 1816, greatly reduced in its funds and its activity 
almost paralyzed. He wrote an overture to the Assem- 



42 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

bly which stirred the body mightily, and led to the 
reorganization of the Board in 1826, with the distinct 
specification of powers to appoint an executive com- 
mittee and a corresponding secretary, and to prosecute 
missions, both domestic and foreign, and to pay mis- 
sionaries with no other restriction than making an 
annual report to the General Assembly. Of this re- 
organized Board Dr. Green was elected president and 
was made chairman of the Executive Committee. For 
many years the meetings of the committee were held in 
his study. It was due in a large measure to his zeal, 
unfailing interest, and wisdom that the Board was 
nurtured into a new life, and started upon its career of 
noble Christian philanthropy. When the foreign mis- 
sionary cause was differentiated from home missions, 
and entered upon its career of world-wide evangeliza- 
tion, Dr. Green showed almost equal zeal in shaping its 
work. He wrote the overture to the Assembly of 1803, 
on the education of pious youth, which was the germ 
of the Board of Ministerial Education, and which led 
to the establishment of the first theological seminary of 
the Church, located at Princeton. The plan of govern- 
ing the seminary was the product of his pen. He was 
the first President of its Board of Directors, and re- 
tained that position to the end of his life. In the 
General Assembly of 1825 he moved the resolution 
which led to the establishment of the Western Theologi- 
cal Seminary at Allegheny. He was a member of all 
the boards or corporations of the Church during his 
day, including the Trustees of the General Assembly. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 43 

2. OTHER PROMINENT COMMISSIONERS 

The members of the Assembly of 1802, both ministers 
and elders, were worthy followers of their distinguished 
leader. The retiring Moderator was the Rev. Nathaniel 
Irwin, of Neshaminy. His text was Luke xiv : 23, 
" Compel them to come in " ; and — shall we say uncon- 
sciously, or was it of purpose ?— gave the keynote of the 
profound missionary spirit of the Assembly and a 
prophecy of its chief act. Mr. Irwin was one of the 
few untitled moderators, but he was none the less well 
worthy of the high office. He was an able and eloquent 
preacher. In the revolutionary struggle he was a firm 
and aggressive patriot. He was a self-trained physician, 
having studied medicine that, in the great dearth of pro- 
fessional medical service which marked that era, he 
might care for the bodily ailments of his flock. 1 He 
was a man of strong scientific tendencies, and was one 
of the earliest friends and patrons of John Fitch, the in- 
ventor. He was fond of music, and played the violin ; 
and there is a tradition, apparently well founded, that 
he did not scruple to exercise his gifts at harvest-time, 
that his workmen might enjoy a moonlight dance upon 
the manse green. He was buried on the spot where the 
old pulpit of Neshaminy had stood, and there he sleeps 
among the fathers of that venerable sanctuary. 

The Rev. Dr. Azel Roe was chosen the Moderator of 
the Assembly of 1802. He was a graduate and subse- 

1 A box containing the scales and weights with which Mr. Irwin 
weighed out medicines is in the possession of the Presbyterian His- 
torical Society in Philadelphia. 



44 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

quently a trustee of Princeton College. He was one of 
the revolutionary heroes among the fathers and founders 
of our Church, having served as a chaplain in the War 
for Independence. On one occasion, when the ranks of 
his regiment had been broken before an assault of the 
enemy, he is said to have rushed into the breach and 
gallantly led the faltering soldiers back to their duty on 
the firing line. He was a man of graceful and dignified 
manners, with a fine head and handsome face. 1 

Most eminent among the commissioners was Dr. John 
Eodgers, of New York. An able preacher, an influ- 
ential leader, a leading patriot, the gallant chaplain of 
Heath's Colonial Brigade, the trusted friend and coun- 
selor of Washington, he was well worthy to be the first 
elected Moderator of the General Assembly. He was 
seventy-five years old in 1802, a venerable and imposing 
figure, with his buzz wig and well polished silver- 
buckle shoes and knee breeches, and was an object of 
universal interest and reverent attention. 

James Richards, the Moderator of 1805, was the first 
President of Auburn Theological Seminary. 

Philip Milledoler, the Moderator of 1808, represented 
in his own person a sort of Catholic Protestantism and 
Pan-Presbyterianism. He was converted in a Metho- 
dist meeting, graduated at an Episcopalian college, 
ordained a German Reformed minister, called and in- 

1 The excellent likeness of Dr. Eoe, which is the frontispiece of 
the paper in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, here- 
after referred to, was engraved from a portrait in the possession of 
his descendants, the Misses Munro, of New York city. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 45 

stalled a Presbyterian pastor in Philadelphia and New 
York, and after being a pastor of the Collegiate Dutch 
Church, in New York, and President of Rutgers Col- 
lege, died in 1852. 

Eliphalet Nott was the Moderator of 1811, a finished 
orator, and the eminent President of Union College. 
James Inglis, of Baltimore, was the Moderator of 1814 ; 
and Francis Herron, the young Pittsburg pastor, was 
the Moderator of 1827. 

Among the ministers of note were Professor Kollock, 
William Sloan, and John Ewing Latta, subsequently a 
permanent clerk ; Nathan Grier, of Brandywine Manor; 
and Chaplain Robert Cooper, of Middle Spring, the 
pastor of a Scotch-Irish congregation in the Cumber- 
land Valley, whose record for patriotic service in three 
wars — the French and Indian, the Revolutionary, and 
the War of 1812 — is probably unequaled in any period 
of our history, by any other congregation. 

From the frontiers came John Watson, the first Presi- 
dent of Jefferson College, and Matthew Brown, the first 
President of Washington College, and for twenty-three 
years the President of Jefferson. From the same sec- 
tion were "the silver-tongued Marquis" and Samuel 
Tait, the pack-horse boy and farmer of Ligonier, who, 
like Cincinnatus, was called at the plow to his ministry. 
There were others almost equally worthy of mention, 
but these were among the leaders, and they were types 
of the ministerial members of that remarkable Assembly. 1 

1 An extended notice of the members and principal acts of the 
Assembly of 1802, prepared by Dr. McCook, is printed in the June 



46 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

3. EULING ELDER COMMISSIONERS 

The elder commissioners were of equal honor and 
ability. The presence of citizens distinguished in the 
various walks of life is no rarity in the highest court 
of the Presbyterian Church. The White House, the 
gubernatorial chair, the Supreme Court of the United 
States, senators and representatives in Congress, judges, 
soldiers, lawyers, physicians, philanthropists, merchant 
princes, and captains of industry, have all and often 
been represented there. But in that century-ago Assem- 
bly, in proportion to the number of elders present, there 
was an unusually large number of eminent non-min- 
isterial presbyters. 

The mother Presbytery of Philadelphia sent three 
commissioners who would have been men of mark in 
any assembly. The Hon. Ebenezer Hazard had served 
as Postmaster-general of the United States, having 
succeeded Mr. Bache in that position in 1789. He was 
one of America's pioneer historians, and was one of the 
seven original members of the new " Standing Commit- 
tee of Missions." The Hon. Jonathan Elmer was a 
man of versatile talents. As a physician, a revolution- 
ary soldier and surgeon, a State legislator, a lawyer, a 
jurist, and as a Representative in Congress, and a Senator 
of the United States from New Jersey, he proved his 
greatness and worth. Elder Isaac Snowden w 7 as the 
faithful treasurer of the Trustees of the General 

number (1902) of the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 
Witherspoon Building, Philadelphia. Those who wish further his- 
torical information would do well to consult that paper. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 47 

Assembly, and as such his hand probably gave the first 
impulse to the movement which, on the recommendation of 
the trustees, resulted in the appointment of the Standing 
Committee of Missions. Perhaps a Philadelphia pres- 
byter ought to apologize for the prominence given his 
adopted city in this rapid sketch. But the historian 
is not responsible therefor, but the facts ! However 
" slow " the modern Philadelphia may be held to be in 
the squib of the newspaper paragrapher and the thread- 
bare jest of the humorist, the hands that uncover the 
records wherein are written the deeds of those who 
wrought at the making of our nation and of our 
Church, will find first and foremost in every field the 
sons and citizens of Philadelphia ! 

The Presbytery of New Brunswick sent Colonel John 
Bayard, perhaps the most distinguished of the ruling 
elder commissioners. Born in Maryland, he came in 
early life to Philadelphia, where the chief incidents in 
his noble career were achieved. Prom the beginning 
of the agitation for national independence he was an 
ardent patriot. In the Provincial Congress, in the 
Convention of the Province, in the Council of Safety, 
as the associate of Franklin, Rittenhouse, Wayne, 
Robert Morris, Roberdeau, Joseph Read, and John 
Cadwallader, he was active and useful. As Colonel of 
the Second Infantry Battalion of the Philadelphia Asso- 
ciators he saw service in the battles of the Brandywine, 
Germantown, and Princeton, and in the last-named 
engagement was personally complimented by General 
Washington for his gallantry. A large part of his 



48 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

considerable fortune was spent in his country's service, 
and he well deserved the commendation of the historian 
Bancroft, as " a patriot of singular purity of character 
and disinterestedness, personally brave, earnest, and 
devout." l For thirty years he was a trustee of 
Princeton College. He was one of the most frequent 
and faithful representatives of his Presbytery in the 
General Assembly. 

From the "far West/' then the frontier of Pennsylva- 
nia, the Presbytery of Ohio sent a Scotch-Irish Revolu- 
tionary veteran, who bore a name which Americans will 
never cease to honor — William McKinley. This com- 
missioner was apparently a brother of the great-grand- 
father of President McKinley, the gallant soldier, the 
pure citizen, the wise statesman, the devout Christian, 
whose untimely death was mourned by a weeping 
world. Although this great man was a faithful com- 
municant of the Methodist Episcopal Church, his 
paternal ancestors were members of our own com- 
munion. By a happy coincidence one of his name and 
blood is an honored commissioner in this Assembly of 
1902, as one was a hundred years ago. 

These were some of the men who a century ago framed 
the policy of imperial missionary extension which has 
spread our great Church, with all its beneficent acts 
and institutions, from the Atlantic Slope to the Pacific 
Coast. Having sublime trust in God and in the future, 

1 See the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, June, 
1902, and a paper by General James Grant Wilson in the New York 
Geneological and Biographical Record, 1885. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 49 

they threw down the gauntlet to the seemingly impos- 
sible, and challenged the religious chaos of a continent, 
and claimed it for God. One cannot think of the simple 
faith and fervent zeal for the salvation of men which led 
our fathers calmly to face immensities of distance and 
of difficulty, and set their weakness and poverty to the 
task of occupying this continent for Christ and his 
Church, without a swelling of heart in lawful pride and 
gratitude for the gift of such men. Since the time when 
the Lord's apostles sallied forth, a mere squad, without 
money or rank or social power, to evangelize a hostile 
world, there have been few acts of sublimer faith or 
loftier Christian heroism. To the man who has not 
learned the lesson which history everywhere teaches — 
that it is unwise to despise the day of small things — it 
would seem trivial, perhaps absurd, at least pitiful, the 
manner in which the Assembly of 1802 pondered the 
petty details of their few missionaries' service, and the 
small gifts for the work. But it may well be questioned 
whether, in that truer judgment which heaven gives, 
and which takes into view the conditions and relations 
of men, we of to-day are not the palterers. 

Think of their poverty and our abundance ; of their 
sacrifices and sufferings and our self-indulgence and 
comforts ; of the perils faced by them and of our com- 
parative safety in service ; of their painful toils in pene- 
trating the wilderness and the ease of modern travel ; 
of the scantiness of their numbers, and of the mighty 
hosts with their experience, piety, wisdom, wealth, and 
enthusiasm that stand back of our home missionaries 

4 



50 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

in this twentieth century. In the comparative view, 
does not the splendid report that your Board and its 
secretary bring you this year pale before the simple tale 
of the labors, the gifts, and the successes of a hundred 
years ago ? It is an electric light of many volts that 
we hold up in this Home Missionary Centenary, but 
it shines in the midst of a nation of eighty millions, 
the wealthiest in the world. It was a tallow-dip candle 
that the fathers bore aloft, but it shone in the Cerberian 
darkness of a wilderness land. Let God be the Judge ; 
but let us take a sharp account of our own stock to-day 
while considering the fathers' work — " lest we forget." 
Hard as was their lot, inadequate as seems their earthly 
reward, we do not pity them. No ; we praise them, we 
envy them ! Their heaven-assigned duty they did 
heartily and well. Doubtless they were tempted, as 
we too have been, to halt in work, to turn therefrom 
disheartened, to think it too hard a task, a heavy and 
a thankless burden. Yet God granted them the prayer 
— as God will grant to us — which he who sits in your 
Moderator's chair has lately voiced in song : — 

" Let me but find it in my heart to say, 
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, — 

* This is my work ; my blessing, not my doom ! 
Of all who live, I am the one by whom 
This work can best be done in the right way.' " 1 

Pardon your speaker if he tunes his rugged harp to 

i Henry van Dyke, " The Three Best Things."— The Outlook, May 
3, 1902. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 51 

sing a thought of comment on our Poet-Moderator's 
verse : — 

There sang the Calvinist ; and in his lays 
He voiced the mighty purpose of those days 

When men went forth as chosen of the Lord 

To seed a continent with Jesus' word, 
And win a chosen people to his ways. 

'Twas meant not thus, mayhap ; but, as the rill 
Breaks from its spring-head in the granite hill, 
And sings its song of sweetness as it goes, 
And brightens all the course o'er which it flows, 
Fulfilling still the Master's sovereign will. 

Yet so it is ; the men whose hands shall guide 
An erring race back to the Saviour's side, 
Have felt the seizure of the heavenly Hand 
To tread the path that God in them has planned, 
And do the task that none may do beside. 

The dipper by the wayside well hangs free ; 
The mountain holds the spring by God's decree ; 

Kind were the hands that hung the dipper there. 

Thank God for all ! But, stop, and full and fair 
Write high their names who, for God's charity, 
Have opened up the fount for all — and thee ! 



"FROM THE ALLEGHENIES TO THE ROCKIES " 



THE PLANTING OF THE CHURCH 

IN THE VALLEY OF THE 

MISSISSIPPI 



BY THE 

REV. SAMUEL J. NICCOLLS, D.D., LL.D. 
St. Louis, Mo. 



THE PLANTING OF THE CHURCH IN THE 
VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 

BY 

SAMUEL J. NICCOLLS, D. D., LL. D. 



Mr. Chairman, Fathers, and Brethren : — 

The subject assigned me on this occasion is one 
requiring volumes to present it adequately, rather than 
a brief address. It has, first of all, a territorial and 
physical magnitude that is impressive. The Mississippi 
Valley embraces that vast area which lies between the 
Alleghenies on the east, the Pocky Mountains on the 
west, the Great Lakes on the north, and the Gulf of 
Mexico on the south. Within these boundaries lies the 
largest and most important valley in the world ; that of 
the Nile, the Euphrates, or of the Rhine, famous in his- 
tory, sinks into insignificance in comparison with it. 
There is none other equal to it in extent, richness of 
soil, and variety of products ministering to the wants 
of civilized man. It contains a larger area than all 
Europe, and its natural resources are practically un- 
limited. It has already become the world's farm, its 
greatest wheat field, corn field, and cotton field. Out 
of its inexhaustible mines comes the larger portion of 
the gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, and lead that supplies 
the demands of the world's commerce and manufactures. 

55 



56 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

The great cities of the seaboard are nourished out of its 
material fullness, and the marts of the world look to it 
for their supplies. It is physically the heart of the 
continent, and animated as it now is with human life, 
its mighty throbs measure the march of our material 
progress, and they are felt throughout the world. 

The familiar name for this vast region is the West, 
and so dominating is this title that we speak of the 
northern portion as the Northwest, and the great south 
land is called the Southwest. No thoughtful reader of 
history, no observer of human affairs, can fail to see 
in this great valley a stage prepared for new and won- 
derful manifestations of God's purpose concerning men. 
There are material as well as spiritual factors in the 
development of the kingdom of God. Our biblical faith 
teaches us that God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus 
holds all things and all events in its embrace, and rules 
them in harmony with itself. When he drew the lines 
of the Valley of the Mississippi, traced the channels of 
its rivers, wrought through long ages for the enrichment 
of its soil, stored the treasures of gold, silver, iron, and 
lead in its hills and mountains, planted its forests, and 
spread abroad its prairies, it was with reference to his 
kingdom. No one who has studied the history of the 
settlement of North America can have failed to notice 
the striking order of events by which it came to be the 
inheritance of the children of the Reformation ; and so, 
a land of liberty and gospel institutions instead of a 
Spanish colony poisoned and blighted by Roman ecclesi- 
asticism. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 57 

Not less significant were the events which led to 
the final and permanent settlement of the West. In 
1682, less than sixty years after the foundation of New 
York, La Salle, in the name of the French king, took 
possession of the region from the Great Lakes to the 
Gulf of Mexico, extending eastward as far as the head 
of the Ohio and westward to an undefined extent. For 
nearly one hundred years the lilies of France floated in 
undisputed sovereignty over this vast territory. The 
entrances to it were jealously guarded. There were 
four of them. One was through the great chain of the 
Northern Lakes and by the head waters of the Missis- 
sippi. The French and the Jesuits held the key to it. 
The second was through the well-worn Indian trail 
along the southern shore of Lake Erie and leading to 
the region now known as Ohio, but the war-like Iro- 
quois were its custodians and forbade the advance of the 
emigrant. The third was down the Ohio River, but 
the French and the Jesuits were at Fort Duquesne. 
The fourth was through the mouth of the Mississippi 
River, where the same watchful guards kept out all who 
were not in sympathy with France and Roman ecclesi- 
asticism. But while France held the territory she did 
not occupy it. Her representatives kept watch over it 
until the chosen people should enter in and take pos- 
session. A monarchy that could devise and execute the 
massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day, and kill or drive 
into exile thousands of its best subjects for worshiping 
God according to the dictates of their own consciences, 
was not the one destined to rule the New World. 



58 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Most significant is the way by which the West was 
entered by the English-speaking and Protestant people. 
It was through the heart of the Alleghenies into the 
region of Kentucky and Tennessee ; and the men who 
dared to go that perilous way were the Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians. 

President Roosevelt, in his history of the Winning 
of the West, writes thus: "The backwoodsmen were 
Americans by birth and parentage and of a mixed race, 
but the dominant strain in their blood was that of the 
Presbyterian Irish, the Scotch-Irish, as they were often 
called. Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead 
and the Cavalier for their leadership in our history, but 
it is doubtful if we have wholly realized the importance 
of the part played by that stern and virile people, the 
Irish, whose preachers taught the creed of Calvin and 
Knox. They formed the kernel of the distinctively and 
intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our 
people in the march westward, the vanguard of the 
army of fighting settlers who with axe and rifle won 
their way from the Alleghenies to the Rio Grande and 
the Pacific. The West was won by those who have 
been rightly called the Roundheads of the South, the 
same men who before any others declared for American 
independence. The creed of the backwoodsmen, so far 
as they had any, was Presbyterian." 

All this meant much for the work of home missions 
and the future of our country. In 1802, when the Home 
Mission Committee was organized, Kentucky had half 
as many people as Massachusetts ; and Tennessee had 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 59 

already been admitted into the Union as a State. At 
the opening of the nineteenth century there began a 
movement which has had in its far-reaching results a 
greater effect upon the destiny of the world than all the 
wars of Continental Europe for the past three hundred 
years. It was the migration to the West. 

Prior to that time the region north of the Ohio River 
was almost uninhabited by white people ; and west of 
the Father of Waters stretched a vast country as un- 
defined as the fabulous realms of Prester John. Through 
various agencies the door to this region was thrown 
open. In 1803 the French flag was lowered and the 
Stars and Stripes lifted in its stead on the western banks 
of the Mississippi. At once a great movement of the 
people westward began. Its advance was like a flood 
of inundating waters, carrying with it things good and 
bad. It grew and gathered, not only from the eastern 
States, but also from the lands beyond the ocean. There 
came Irishmen, Scotchmen, Englishmen, French, Swedes, 
Norwegians, Hungarians, Germans, Italians, Holland- 
ers, Russians, a mighty and mixed multitude in a cease- 
less and ever-enlarging procession, to build their homes 
in the fertile West. It was a movement as big with 
destiny to this land of ours as was that of the Goths 
and Vandals to Italy and the old Roman Empire. 

It was at the beginning of this movement that our 
Board of Home Missions was organized. True, prior 
to 1802, heroic and self-denying missionaries like 
McMillan and Beatty had gone to the frontiers to look 
after " the lost sheep in the wilderness." Presbyteries 



60 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

and synods had carefully and prayerfully considered 
the needs of the new settlements, but now, as moved by 
some prophetic instinct, the whole Church, through the 
General Assembly, pledged itself to this work ; and, 
God be praised, from that day until now there has been 
no backward step or faltering in the work then under- 
taken. 

The organization then made has grown from strength 
to strength, and in variety of functions, so that now it 
manifests itself not only in home missions, but in the 
work for the Freedmen, Sabbath schools, the Board of 
Publication, the Board of Church Erection, the Board 
of Aid for Schools and Colleges, and the Woman's 
Board of Home Missions. That such a work was 
demanded by the West is so evident that no one will 
question its necessity, but not all, even at this late date, 
realize its supreme importance, and how much it has 
had to do with the best development of our country 
and the evangelization of the world. 

Much has been said concerning the perils that threat- 
ened our country during the dark days of the Civil 
War. We honor the men who in the hour of their 
country's peril hazarded their lives in its defense ; and 
we build monuments to those who died on the battle- 
field. But no less deserving of honor are those mis- 
sionaries of our own branch of the Church, and of 
others, also, who went forth in the name of Christ and 
under his banner to meet the perils that threatened 
our country and our civilization during the settlement 
of the West. The early settlers were a brave, hardy, 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 61 

and courageous people. Too much cannot be said in 
praise of certain traits of their character ; the wild free- 
dom which they enjoyed and the primitive conditions 
of life in which they lived tended to make them sturdy, 
independent, and self-reliant. But that same freedom 
also led to lawlessness. The same evil results appeared 
which ever manifest themselves in sinful human nature 
when man is left unrestrained to do that which seems 
good in his own eyes. The restraints of society under 
the influence of Christianity were not felt by them. 
The visible Church with its ordinances and testimony 
for God was not there to speak to the conscience. As 
a consequence many of the frontier settlements were 
characterized by lawlessness, vice, and crime. Wicked- 
ness became bold and boastful and infidelity spread with 
startling rapidity. In the isolated settlements, under the 
dominion of ignorance, vice, and irreligion, the people 
were fast sinking into barbarism. This was true not 
only of the rural settlements, but also of the towns. 
Trace back the history of the great cities of the West, 
the equal to-day of any on our Continent in intelligence 
and morality, and you will come to a chaotic period 
when lawlessness and vice in every form abounded, 
when violence was prevalent, when manners were 
coarse, and speech indecent and profane. Good men 
were filled with dismay by what they saw ; some yielded 
to the evil contagion ; some were vexed in their souls, 
but, like Lot in Sodom, remained quiet; and some, 
girding themselves for the conflict, said, " A change must 
be made or society will perish." 



62 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

The danger was real and widespread. The incoming 
of a certain class of emigrants from abroad only added 
to it. So great was the peril that earnest patriots and 
Christians of seventy-five years ago were filled with 
consternation over the conditions. And what was it 
that saved the civilization of the West ? What arrested 
the downward tendency and made the progress of that 
region the wonder of the world? Doubtless certain 
physical agencies wrought together to this end. Steam- 
boats, railroads, and the telegraph conquered time and 
space and nullified the baneful effects of isolation. They 
helped to make the West feel the power of a common 
life, and brought it into direct sympathy with the civili- 
zation of the East. But more powerful than anything 
else was the work of the Church through its various 
missionary agencies. The true winning of the West 
was accomplished by the missionaries of the cross of 
Christ. Will any one dare say that the Valley of 
the Mississippi would be what it is to-day, in all that 
gives it true greatness, honor, and power, without the 
gospel of Christ? The condition of the unevangel- 
ized portions of our country gives the lie to such an 
assertion. It is too late in the day to question the power 
of the gospel to civilize men, to restrain vice, to purify 
public morals, to promote intelligence, to give peace and 
order in society, and to reproduce in man the lost image 
of God. With the eloquent Webster we can say, 
" Where have the waters of civilization sprung up save 
in the steps of the Christian ministry ?" 

The men who went forth to plant the Church in the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 63 

Valley of the Mississippi are worthy of remembrance 
on an occasion like this. They were men, for the most 
part, of superior qualifications for their work. It is true 
that there has been a great variety of missionary labor- 
ers in the West. Some were zealous but uneducated, 
and often kindled the fires of religious fanaticism ; some 
had only a rudimentary knowledge of the gospel, but 
were animated by a love for Christ and the souls of men 
that served to make them successful evangelists. But 
it can be said of the missionaries of the Presbyterian 
Church that, joined with their love for Christ, was a 
thorough mental training and equipment which fitted 
them for special and important service in the upbuilding 
of the West. In the early part of the last century they, 
more than any others, w T ere the Christian instructors of 
the people. They were graduates of the best eastern 
colleges, and had received careful instruction in theology. 
The policy of the Presbyterian Church in requiring 
an educated ministry has an ample justification in the 
work done by her home missionaries in the West. 

Take a single case as an illustration : In the early 
part of the last century there was a graduate of Yale 
College under Timothy Dwight who studied theology 
at Princeton. His first charge was an important one in 
the State of New York, and from it he was invited to 
the old Allen Street Church in the city of New York, 
then in the meridian of its power. His ministrations 
were most acceptable, and gracious revivals attended 
his preaching, but his thoughts were ever turning toward 
the great field in the West. He heard the cry of its 



64 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

destitution as did Paul the voice of the man of Mace- 
donia. One day Dr. Peters, Secretary of Home Mis- 
sions, came to him with a call that was backed by the 
wants of thousands of miners and merchants who were 
living on the shores of the Upper Mississippi, without 
a church or a school. He promptly responded, " I go, 
sir," rejoicing like the great apostle to find an opportu- 
nity where he could build on no other man's foundation. 
With a promptness and boldness that ever characterized 
his actions he immediately set forth on his journey to his 
distant field of labor. The little surplus that remained, 
after purchasing a slender outfit for himself and family, 
he gave to the American Tract Society as a parting gift. 
Twenty-seven days after leaving New York he landed 
in Galena, and the next day being the Sabbath, he 
gathered a congregation in a large dining room and there 
began the first preaching of the gospel of Christ in 
northern Illinois. His field of labor was a typical 
western one of that date. Galena had a miscellaneous 
population gathered from Europe and the eastern States. 
Some few may have been professors of religion in their 
old homes, but they were " blighted and famished Chris- 
tians." The vast majority were utterly irreligious. 
" Sabbath-breaking, profanity, and gambling had ob- 
tained an alarming and sickening prevalence." There 
was no church of any denomination, Protestant or 
Catholic, within two hundred miles. The great North- 
west was still occupied by Indians ; the war-trail of 
Black Hawk had not disappeared from northern Illi- 
nois ; the settlement at Chicago had not yet commenced ; 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 65 

another great missionary, Jeremiah Porter, had not as 
yet come to the garrison at Fort Dearborn. He was 
alone in the wide field. He wrote, " Here is opened a 
great and effectual door to preach the gospel." 

But there were many adversaries. A less resolute 
man would have left the field, but his faith never fal- 
tered. Coming one day to a bluff that commanded a 
wide view of the Upper Mississippi he alighted from 
his horse, and, uncovering his head, lifted his hand to 
heaven and said, " I take possession of this land for 
Christ." The act of La Salle in raising the French flag 
in 1682 and taking possession of the valley in the name 
of the French king was not so significant. This bold 
pioneer of the cross, burning with the spirit of conquest, 
had a royal mandate from his King for his act. Nor 
was it an idle or enthusiastic boast on the part of the 
missionary. He remained to hold the ground, and with 
unfaltering faith and enduring patience he faced the 
difficulties before him. It took three years of toil before 
he could organize a church of six members, and of the 
original six only two were from Galena ; the others 
resided outside, from five to forty miles distant. He 
went abroad to every settlement and village within a 
radius of one hundred miles preaching the word. But 
these years of toilsome plowing and sowing were fol- 
lowed by a bounteous harvest. Revival succeeded re- 
vival, during which two hundred and fifty-six persons 
were added to Christ in his church. He did not despise 
the day of small things, but counted himself honored 
in being permitted to lay the foundations of a Christian 



66 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

civilization. To him the school was the ally of the 
Church, and education the handmaid to religion. In 
faith and prayer he laid the foundations of three colleges 
and two ladies' seminaries, which exist to-day, monu- 
ments to his foresight, his wisdom, and his enlightened 
public spirit. Associated with him in his labors and 
trials was his accomplished wife, a typical western 
missionary's wife, educated, refined, gentle, patient, 
heroic. Their three children died in infancy, but in 
their broad and practical charity they made their house 
an orphans' home. They reared and educated twelve 
orphan children, all of whom became useful and hon- 
ored members of society* In addition, they helped to 
educate nine young men for the ministry, and this was 
done on a salary of $600 a year. They studied economy 
that they might be the helpers of others. A pioneer 
home missionary bending all his energies to develop his 
own field, he was also the friend of foreign missions, 
and aided his people in contributing to that cause. In 
his old age, in his seventy-fourth year, he was an active 
and efficient superintendent of home missions in the 
Northwest, still abundant in labors. He did not stop 
to rest until his Lord called him to his eternal home 
and reward November 8th, 1868. 

Such is the mere outline of the life and labors of a 
western missionary, Aratus Kent. He has left for him- 
self a monument more enduring than brass or marble. 
He still lives in the widespread community upon which 
he left the impress of his self-sacrificing life. But 
his name is only one of scores and hundreds equally 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 67 

worthy of remembrance and honor that could be men- 
tioned. 

Ohio can tell of James Hoge and David Badger, and 
their apostolic zeal ; Kentucky, of David Rice and 
Cleland ; Tennessee, of Doak, the educator, and of 
Blackburn and Nelson who, as burning and shining 
lights, went through state after state, and from settle- 
ment to settlement, kindling the fire of spiritual revival 
until it swept like a mighty conflagration over the land. 
Indiana can tell of Father Dickey ; and Missouri, of 
Giddings, Cochran, and Finley ; Kansas, of the great 
home missionary leader, Timothy Hill, the father of 
western synods, who has left an enduring monument 
for himself in the presbyteries and churches of three 
States. 

But time fails me to repeat the names of those old 
worthies ; they shine as stars of the first magnitude in 
the spiritual heavens. But clustering around them are 
others less conspicuous in service, but equally faithful 
in work and testimony, for whom earth had nothing 
great enough to reward them. To them belongs the 
high honor of having laid the foundations upon which 
others built. They were the brave leaders who carried 
the banners of the gospel to the frontiers, took possession 
of the land, and held it for liberty, for Christian civili- 
zation, and for Christ. We do not properly estimate 
the difficulties of their task and the sublime heroism 
with which it was accomplished, if we think only or 
chiefly of the physical privations or of the dangers 
which they faced in the wilderness. It is true that they 



68 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

lived on most meager salaries, and suffered the hard- 
ships of early western life, but so did others. It is 
true that they were in perils in the wilderness, and 
heard the war-cries of savage foes, but so did others. 
We cannot claim pre-eminence for them on account of 
these things, save as they endured them, not for per- 
sonal gain, but for Christ's sake, and that they might 
save their fellow-men. They went forth not to conquer 
the wilderness, but to fight the battles of faith, to face 
the demons of darkness, ignorance, superstition, vice, 
unbelief, and irreligion, more terrible and harder to 
overcome than the wild beasts or hostile savages of the 
primeval forests. It is difficult for us, enjoying as we 
do the benefits of a Christian civilization, to realize the 
conditions of society that confronted them, and how 
hard it was to keep from despair in view of the obsta- 
cles before them. That they won at all is due to the 
power and grace of God, but none the less is honor due 
his faithful servants who believed in the power of his 
gospel to overcome all evil and to save men. In their 
preaching they used the terms of the old theology 
because these terms expressed their convictions. They 
were not to them worn-out or exaggerated phrases. 
They saw sin, man's ruin, his need, and the greatness 
and sovereignty of grace with such clearness and full- 
ness of vision that the old terms alone could express 
what they saw. It is to be feared that in many cases 
defective and not clearer vision is the reason for the 
modern demand for new terms ; and that what is really 
wanted is not the old faith in new phrases, but a new 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 69 

one in its own appropriate speech. Certain it is that 
these old conquering missionaries were not anxious to 
make the gospel acceptable to the people by preaching 
it in terms agreeable to the natural man. 

They came to godless men with a message from God, 
calling them to repentance and faith. They preached 
the utter ruin of human nature through sin ; they set 
forth in plainest terms the immutable law of God, and 
summoned their hearers to its bar to hear the dreadful 
condemnation that rested upon them. They made the 
thunder of the violated law to resound in their con- 
sciences until they cried out in anguish of soul : then 
they pointed them to the cross, the only refuge and hid- 
ing place for the guilty, a sweet and gracious manifesta- 
tion of divine love. Say what we will about it in these 
days when a rose-scented and cultured liberalism would 
persuade us that sin is only a temporary defect and hell but 
an ugly dream, this was the preaching that, under God, 
saved and regenerated society in the West. These mis- 
sionaries were, first of all, preachers of the word, am- 
bassadors for Christ beseeching men to be reconciled to 
God, but they were also men of enlarged public spirit, 
concerned for the establishment of a Christian civiliza- 
tion. The doctrines which they preached were those 
which ever tend most powerfully to the establishment 
of pure morality, justice, and liberty among men. Their 
Presbyterianism represented the very spirit of free insti- 
tutions and of stable self-government ; and especially 
were they concerned for the sacred cause of education 
on the basis of Christianity. They planted the school 



70 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

alongside the church. It is pathetic to read of their 
tireless and self-sacrificing struggles to secure academies 
and colleges for the higher education of the people. 
With a statesmanlike foresight for the future they laid 
in prayer and faith the foundations of institutions that 
have become leading educational centers in the West. 
There is not a college in the Mississippi Valley over 
fifty years old that does not owe its origin, either directly 
or indirectly, to the labors of the missionaries. 

But how can we adequately measure the results of 
their labors during the last one hundred years? We 
can point to communities that once were scenes of 
violence and crime, where vice flaunted itself with un- 
blushing effrontery, now fair and peaceful, adorned by 
the homes of God-fearing, intelligent, and law-abiding 
people, and confidently say, "that but for the labors 
of the home missionaries, who brought to them the 
purifying and exalting message of the gospel, they 
would have remained in their degradation." We can 
name schools and colleges and seminaries by the scores 
and hundreds whose early annals record the names of 
our missionaries as among their founders. Of the four 
thousand churches of our order in the Mississippi 
Valley, we can say that 90 per cent of them were 
organized by our missionaries or supported in their 
infancy by the funds of the Board. We can say that 
through this early planting we have now a harvest of 
nearly 500,000 communicants, almost one-half of the 
present membership of the whole Church, in the Valley 
of the Mississippi. The churches represented by them 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 71 

contributed last year $352,000 to the Board of Home 
Missions and $269,000 to Foreign Missions. But 
this does not tell all. There are some results that 
can be tabulated in figures, measured by dollars, or by 
pounds or lineal measure ; but not so with spiritual 
forces and results. Even for that most spiritual of all 
material forces, electricity, a new terminology had to be 
invented, and we measure it by ohms and amperes. 

But the terms have not yet been invented that will 
measure the power of the spirit of missions in its results 
upon society and the souls of men. We can see enough 
that is permanent, tangible, visible, and useful to justify 
the work of home missions, and to lead us to honor 
the men and women who were engaged in it. 

To serve society in any way that advances its mate- 
rial interests is praiseworthy, but to serve it in such a 
way as to promote its moral and spiritual advancement 
is to render the highest possible service, and to confer 
enduring honor upon him who does it. There are 
many methods by which this can be done; but none 
are more directly engaged in it than those who as mis- 
sionaries bear the tidings of God's love to sinful men. 
Their work extends not only to the individuals whom 
they meet personally, but it reaches on through the 
coming generations and breaks through the boundaries 
of time and space. All honor to them ! 

Our country holds in grateful remembrance the men 
who in the hour of her peril went to the front, hazard- 
ing their lives for what they believed to be humanity's 
great cause ; she builds monuments in memory of those 



72 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

who fell in the great conflict, and places upon the pen- 
sion roll the enfeebled survivors of the Grand Army. 
Not less worthy of remembrance are those who went to 
the frontiers to engage in a struggle that was fraught 
with life or death to our country. They were as patri- 
otic as they were Christian. For the most part they 
lived in obscurity and died in poverty. The country 
builds no monuments to their memory, nor do they need 
any beyond those that now stand to their honor. The 
countless churches, whose spires point to the heavens, 
from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains ; the 
schools and colleges that shine throughout the land like 
stars in the sky of night; the redeemed communities 
that rejoice in the blessings of the gospel — these are 
their monuments, these the symbols of their reward. 
Their names are on the pension rolls of the great King 
who ever crowns his faithful soldiers, and who never 
fails to reward, in the abundance of his grace, the low- 
liest service done in his name. 

The history of home missions in the West readily 
divides itself into three periods. The first is from the 
beginning of the last century to the year 1838. That 
was a time of experiment, of organization, and of rapid 
growth. The various independent home missionary 
societies were brought together into one, with a national 
scope and with increased power. The growth of the 
Church in the West was rapid. Churches were multi- 
plied in every direction, and the spirit of religious zeal 
was strong and active. It was a time of great oppor- 
tunity for our Church ; the empire of the West was 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 73 

within our grasp ; alas, that we failed in the supreme 
hour. 

The second period is from 1838 to 1870. It was a 
time of divisions, with its strifes and losses. "Old 
School " and " New School/' " Northern " and " South- 
ern/' are names that belong to that period. Home mis- 
sion work was arrested by ecclesiastical strife, and the 
strength of the Church was spent in building up rival 
organizations in the same community. While we halted 
to impress upon our people the supreme importance of 
certain distinctions in theology, other denominations 
outran us. There are some very salutary lessons to be 
learned from this sad period of alienation and division, 
lessons of warning as well as instruction. 

The third period began with the reunion of 1870. 
The reunited Church addressed itself at once with in- 
creased vigor to the evangelization of the West. 
Another great opportunity had come. The close of the 
Civil War, establishing our national unity, saw the com- 
mencement of a new emigration to the West, and of a 
marvelous development of its resources. There were 
two great and providential leaders in the Board of Home 
Missions at that time, Henry Kendall and Cyrus Dick- 
son : one, cool, resolute, and statesmanlike in his plans 
of action ; the other, warm hearted, full of fiery zeal and 
impassioned devotion to the cause. One was the com- 
plement of the other in the sphere of leadership. One 
was the Grant, the other the Sherman, of the great cam- 
paign in the West. One was like Moses, sagacious, 
determined, and slow of speech ; the other, as Aaron, 



74 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

eloquent of tongue. What was done under their leader- 
ship is so manifest in its greatness and power that there 
is no need to dwell upon it. They sowed liberally, and 
the abundant harvest which the Church is now reaping 
justifies what they did. The period which they inaugu- 
rated has not yet closed. The work planned on so 
broad a scale by them has fallen into other and, we 
believe, most capable hands for its administration. But 
it remains for the Church to realize more fully and 
clearly the magnitude of the unfinished work. Never 
was there a time when there were more urgent reasons 
that it should be carried on aggressively, courageously, 
and with abounding liberality than now. 

It is true that the old conditions have changed. The 
frontiers, of which so much has been said, are gone, but 
the need for evangelization has not disappeared. On 
account of the rapid increase of population it is greater 
than ever. The vast field of the West has been inclosed, 
and the work lies at our door. Our cities and towns, 
growing with amazing rapidity, are as truly mission 
fields as were the old-time frontiers, and there are un- 
evangelized regions with a population tenfold greater 
than those that enlisted the labors and prayers of the 
Church fifty years ago. It would be easy, did time 
permit, to mention scores and hundreds of localities 
where there are open doors to preach the gospel, but 
which have not been entered because missionaries could 
not be sent. I could readily speak of the vast tide of 
foreign emigration pouring into this country, enough at 
the present rate to make a city the size of New York in 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 75 

a period of five years, and the larger portion of this 
emigration finds its way to the West. 

But let us turn from this and consider some of the 
reasons that should lead us to a profounder interest in 
the work of home evangelization. In this great com- 
mercial metropolis of our country, where men of enter- 
prise are on the alert to do all that wdll promote the 
interest of commerce and trade, home missions ought 
to have special consideration on the ground of material 
advantages resulting from it, even if there were none 
other. It can readily be demonstrated that the gospel 
of Jesus Christ in its practical outworking in society 
encourages thrift and industry, and creates the highest 
order of civilization. Every great business house in 
this city can give the difference between the commercial 
rating of an evangelized and an unevangelized com- 
munity. Also it would be easy to bring forward the 
reasons that should lead every American citizen, who 
cares for the welfare of his country, to take a profound 
interest in this work. Political economy never found a 
better rule for securing the public welfare than that 
one given by the inspired law-giver of Israel, which is 
the ancient charter of home missions : " Set your 
heart unto all the words which I testify among you this 
day, ... all the words of this law. For it is not a vain 
thing for you ; because it is your life : and through this 
thing ye shall prolong your days in the land." It re- 
quires no prophetic inspiration to affirm without a 
doubt that the life and glory of our nation depend 
entirely upon the continuance and spread of the gospel 



76 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

among our people. That gospel gave us our civiliza- 
tion and our free institutions, and if the day should ever 
come when it is no longer regarded by us, on that day 
our doom will be sealed : however brilliant the first 
pages of our history, the last will be the saddest in the 
annals of time, for they will not only register the judg- 
ments of God upon a people who knew not the day of 
their visitation, but they will also record the final over- 
throw of the best hopes of men. 

But there are higher and more urgent reasons for the 
prosecution of the work of home missions. The first 
is the absolute need for it. That gospel, in which you 
and I believe and on which we base our hopes of eternal 
life, comes to us with the assertion of a most solemn 
fact. It is that all men, cultured or uncultured, are 
under the power of sin, and unless saved by divine grace 
are certain to be lost eternally in the misery and shame 
of sin. From this condition there is no escape except 
by the way of God's providing, which is through Jesus 
Christ. The wretched and hopeless condition of men 
without the gospel is revealed in part by what can be 
seen in our own land. There are dark places, hideous 
sores on the public body, localities where vice reigns, 
and where as a consequence human nature is stripped 
of all its fairness. But it is to be feared that this sad 
fact of man's utter ruin is not clearly realized by mul- 
titudes who call themselves Christians. There is a 
widely prevalent skepticism concerning the condition of 
men without faith in Christ, which paralyzes missionary 
effort and leads many to justify their indifference con- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 77 

cerning the religious instruction of others. It was this 
urgent need that called the Son of God from heaven to 
earth. " The Son of man came to seek and to save that 
which was lost." It was the conviction that men were 
perishing in sin, and that there was no other deliverer 
for them than through Christ, that led the apostles forth 
on their glorious errand, and gave such earnestness and 
power to their preaching. And this same conviction 
must take hold of our hearts, fathers and brethren, if 
we would have a profound and heartfelt interest in the 
evangelization of our land and of the world. It is in 
view of this need that the great and last command of 
our Lord is given to us to go forth and preach his 
gospel. 

A second reason that should enlist our larger coopera- 
tion is the greatness and glory of the work itself. It is 
not anything common or unimportant that it calls us to 
do. It has indeed lower and temporal aims; it pro- 
poses to reform society, to help the poor, to educate the 
ignorant, to refine manners and customs, to secure just 
laws and establish liberty and justice — in short, to help 
man in his earthly lot. But it aims at vastly more ; all 
this is only incidental. It seeks above all to carry on 
and complete Christ's work ; it calls men to glory, 
honor, and immortality in the presence of God. The 
great aim of mission work everywhere is to bring men 
into the fellowship of the Son of God. It is to make 
those who have been ruined by sin heirs of God and 
joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Was there ever a more 
glorious mission assigned to mortals ? There are causes 



78 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

that have enlisted the efforts and kindled the enthusiasm 
of men to the highest degree. For national independ- 
ence, for human rights, for the cause of liberty, men 
have made costly sacrifices, borne hardships, and freely 
shed their blood. But what are all these things when 
weighed against the cause in which the Son of God 
labored and died, the cause in which the missionary 
labors ? To build a church in a destitute neighborhood, 
to establish a Sunday school among the ignorant and 
neglected, to send a missionary to preach the gospel in 
some new settlement, may seem in the judgment of the 
men of the world a small matter devoid of honor. But 
when it is seen in connection with the great end Christ 
had before him, the lifting up of men into his eternal 
greatness, how unspeakably important and glorious it is ! 
Another reason that should lead us to engage with 
renewed ardor in the evangelization of our land is the 
certainty of success. I do not mean to say that this 
assurance should be a chief motive. We ought to engage 
in it irrespective of success or failure because our Lord 
has commanded us. But the assurance of success has 
much to do with stimulating activity. The Holy Spirit 
does not hesitate to use it, as it is written : " Therefore, 
my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye 
know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." No 
one can labor enthusiastically in a failing cause. But 
the seal of success is upon this enterprise, its triumph is 
guaranteed by the sure promises of the Lord. The 
history of the past hundred years should encourage us. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 79 

To doubt or to hesitate now, with the results before us, 
would be like doubting the power of God to renew the 
face of the earth when springtime has come and the 
seeds are sprouting, the grass robing the fields, and the 
fragrance of the blossoms is in the air. Whether mis- 
sion work will be a success or not is no longer an open 
question ; the one question of supreme importance to 
you and me is, What part shall we have in the final 
triumph when it comes ? Is not this a time for us to 
reconsecrate ourselves to the great w T ork which our 
fathers undertook, the evangelization of our land, and 
through it the evangelization of the world ? It is 
often said in the interests of a world-wide preaching of 
the gospel that " the light which shines furthest abroad 
is the one that shines brightest at home." But the con- 
verse of the proposition is equally true ; the one that 
shines brightest at home will be the one that sends its 
beams furthest abroad. This land must be illuminated 
before it can shine in Christ's name for the world. To 
falter now in our work would be to proclaim ourselves 
faithless to our great trust ; it would be to invite defeat 
and disaster. Again, in the providence of God, a great 
opportunity is before us, and never were we so endowed 
for service as now. Whatever excuses we might plead 
for failure to evangelize our land completely, it can 
never be urged in these days that we had not the finan- 
cial ability to do it. The facilities for work w r ere never 
so excellent as now. Science aids the Church, and 
modern inventions, by breaking down the barriers of 
time and space, have brought us all close together. The 



80 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

want and the supply, the need and the help, are close at 
hand. The hour for action has come. Blow the trumpet, 
servants of God, and sound the advance ! Let us lift 
up our war-worn banners. The faith that inspired our 
fathers a hundred years ago, and which made them 
courageous in days of poverty and weakness, let that 
faith be ours also, only made stronger by the abundant 
assurances which God has given us to confirm it. In- 
spired by it, let us go forth, joining with our brethren 
of every name, to bring this fair land of ours into sub- 
jection to Jesus Christ. 



" FEOM THE EOCKIES TO THE PACIFIC ' 



HOME MISSIONS ON THE PACIFIC 
COAST 



BY THE 

KEV. EDGAE P. HILL, D.D. 

Portland, Oregon 



HOME MISSIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST 

BY THE 

EEV. EDGAK P. HILL, D. D. 



Mr. Moderator, Fathers, and Brethren: — 

My text is in the second chapter of the history of 
the city of St. Louis. It reads as follows : " In 1832 
four Nez Perces Indians from Oregon came to this city 
in search of the white man's Book." * The scene in the 

1 These Indians were not Flat Heads, as is popularly supposed. 
The following letter from Miss McBeth of Lapwai, Idaho, explains 
the situation : " Some time after Lewis and Clark left here the Nez 
Perces heard, from several sources, about God, and very soon the sun 
pole was set up near Walla Walla. They recalled the upward ges- 
tures of Lewis and Clark, saying, ' Now we know what they meant, 
the sun is God.' Years passed on and in their groping they added 
more ceremonies to their worship, but still their hearts were not 
satisfied and their annual councils were closed with these words : ' If 
we could only find the path of Lewis and Clark they would tell us 
the truth about God and that Book the white man has from heaven/ 
At last they decided to go, and two from the Kamiah community 
were chosen, the same place where Lewis and Clark on their return 
from the coast had camped for more than a month waiting for the 
snow to melt off the mountains so they could pass on home. The 
relatives of these two Kamiah men are still in the valley there. A 
third one was from a Salmon River band of Nez Perces. I have had 
these statements from perfectly reliable Christian Indians, who well 
remember the going out of these men. Their road led them through 
the Flat Head country, and there they were joined by a half-and- 
half Flat Head and Nez Perce. These are the four who reached 
St. Louis. Not a Nez Perce olcl or young who has not heard this 
story of their fathers going to find the truth or light." 

83 



84 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

frontier audience room, when those red skins stood 
before General Clark, is worthy a panel of honor at the 
national Capitol. That was one of the great moments in 
our national life. It announced the beginning of a new 
epoch in territorial expansion. It brought face to face 
a disappearing race and its white conqueror. But most 
thrilling, most pathetic of all, was its religious signifi- 
cance. The dusky strangers had picked their way 
through trackless forests, over inhospitable plains, past 
hostile tribes, to beg of the white man a copy of that 
mysterious Book, written by the finger of the Great 
Spirit. Centuries before an apostle had heard the cry 
from afar, " Come over and help us," but these modern 
Macedonians, instead of asking some one to come to 
them, had themselves gone in search of the blessing. 
At the risk of their lives they had made a perilous jour- 
ney of three thousand miles to learn of the white man's 
God and the white man's heaven. 

Dr. Niccolls did not live in St. Louis in those days. 
Therefore the visitors were taken to the dance houses. 
They saw the altars where the Great Spirit was wor- 
shiped with candles. They were entertained at sumptu- 
ous feasts. Then they turned toward the West with 
heavy hearts. " You make my feet heavy with burdens 
of gifts/' their spokesman said, " and my moccasins will 
grow old in carrying them, but the Book is not among 
them. When I tell my poor blind people in the big 
council that I did not bring the Book, no word will be 
spoken by our old men or our young braves. One by 
one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 85 

will die in darkness and they will go on the long path 
to the other hunting-grounds." 

The story of this incident was circulated through the 
East, and stirred the Church with profound emotion. 
Heroic souls became eager to undertake the dangerous 
mission. In four years two missionaries with their 
wives were on their way to the West with the white 
man's Book. 

What Oriental tale has half the charm and romance 
that gather about the beginnings of missions on the 
Pacific coast? Fifty years ago the far west was a 
place of enchantment. The streams of California 
seemed bedded with gold. Men became rich in a day, 
while at the North, on the Columbia, picturesque John 
McLoughlin was holding his court at old Fort Van- 
couver, like a baron of the Middle Ages. A peculiar 
interest attaches to the mission work of those days by 
reason of the daring of the men, the romantic setting 
of the drama, and the momentous results which have 
already come and are sure to follow. 

First, let us notice the work of our missionaries in 
the Pacific Northwest. The early settlement of Oregon 
and Washington was in decided contrast to the move- 
ment which resulted in the building up of California. 
The Argonauts went out in search of gold. The Oregon 
pioneers went out to find land. The gold excitement 
attracted to California many adventurers and despera- 
does who became a terror to the law-abiding element. 
The men who settled the North crossed the plains with 
their families and established quiet villages. The Califor- 



86 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

nian was apt to be a man of loose morals, who had little 
regard for things religious, whose plan was to make his 
stake and return to the East. The typical Oregonian 
was a man of a different stamp. He carried with him 
some books, some seed wheat, drove a few head of 
stock, and went out to find a permanent home. 

Modern California began as a mining camp. The 
Oregon and Washington of to-day have grown from 
the peaceful agricultural settlements of a half century 
ago. 

There is one name that stands out before all the rest 
in the history of those early days. We love to tell of 
our hero. We regard him as one of the great men of 
the nation. His courage, his far-seeing wisdom, his 
consecration to the cause of his Master, furnish material 
for a national epic. You of Massachusetts delight to 
tell of Samuel Adams, the patriot. You of Ohio tell of 
your Garfield, the statesman. You of Illinois tell of 
your Lincoln, the martyr. We, from the West, come 
to you with the name of one who was as patriotic as 
Adams, as statesmanlike as Garfield, and who, like 
Lincoln, wears the crown of martyrdom, Marcus Whit- 
man, the Presbyterian elder and home missionary. 

Dr. Whitman, with his young bride, and Rev. H. H. 
Spalding, also recently married and accompanied by his 
wife, crossed the plains in 1836, and established a mis- 
sion on the upper Columbia, near the present city of 
Walla Walla. General John C. Fremont is popularly 
known as the " Path-finder." We think of the daring 
soldier threading his way past warlike Indians and over 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 87 

unknown alkali deserts to the Pacific Ocean, thus pre- 
paring the way for those who were to follow. 

But it is well to remember that six years before Fre- 
mont had discovered the famous South Pass in the 
Rockies two Presbyterian home missionaries and their 
young wives had gone ahead to prepare the way for the 
Path-finder. 

When Whitman and his party had passed the spot 
which marks the dividing line between the Mississippi 
Valley and the Pacific Slope they stopped and dis- 
mounted. Spreading their blankets, they lifted the 
American flag, read a chapter from God's word, and 
took possession of the land in the name of Christ and 
the Church. Barrows, the historian, w r ell says that 
along with the historic scenes of Balboa at Panama and 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, there should be a place 
for the picture of these home missionaries kneeling 
around the open Book, with the American flag floating 
overhead. 

You all are familiar, no doubt, with the story of 
Whitman's ride to Washington in the winter of 1842-43. 
You have noticed also, perhaps, the attempts to dis- 
parage the services of Whitman by those who insist that 
the Northwest Pacific might have been saved to the 
United States even if that winter's ride had not been 
taken. 

And now it will be in order for some one to attempt 
to rob Columbus of his glory by insisting that America 
would have been discovered even if he had never lived ; 
and Washington of his, by declaring that the colonies 



88 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

might have become free without his help ; and Lincoln 
of his, by trying to prove that emancipation might have 
come in some other way. These facts, however, remain : 
that Marcus Whitman, with a single companion, did 
make that fearful journey through the snow to tell the 
President that the British were planning to seize the 
territory. He did plead earnestly with President Tyler 
and Secretary Webster to hold the land. He did guide 
a great wagon train across the prairies, and thus insure 
the territory for the Stars and Stripes. Therefore we 
have the right to place in one column the little salary 
paid to Marcus Whitman, missionary to the Cayuse 
Indians, and in the other the almost fabulous wealth of 
Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, and to say to 
the skeptic, " Here, reckon up for yourself the indebted- 
ness of this nation to the cause of home missions." 

The first Presbyterian church on the Pacific Coast was 
organized in 1846 by the Rev. Lewis Thompson at 
Clatsop Plains, Oregon, near the spot where Lewis and 
Clarke had spent a winter forty years before, between 
their memorable expeditions across the continent. The 
Presbytery of Oregon was organized in 1851 . The Synod 
of the Pacific, including the present States of California, 
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and part of Montana, was 
organized in 1853 in San Francisco. It was some 1250 
miles long by 700 miles wide, and had an area as large 
as all New England and New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, with enough over to 
make a State the size of South Carolina. In 1876 the 
Synod of the Pacific was divided into the Synod of 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 89 

California and the Synod of the Columbia. In 1890 
the Synod of the Columbia was divided into the Synod 
of Oregon and the Synod of Washington. 

For over a half century the home missionaries of 
the Pacific Northwest have been plunging into the for- 
ests, picking their way along the trails of the miners, 
burying themselves for months at a time in isolated 
places far from the main lines of travel. They have 
sacrificed without a murmur. They have won the re- 
spect of the rough backwoodsmen who hate shams. 
They have not feared to declare the whole counsel of 
God to men who did not want to believe that the gospel 
was true. I wish you might know some of our home 
missionary soldiers — your home missionary soldiers — 
whose heroisms are rarely heralded abroad and who 
have no martial music to inspire them to battle. Let 
me introduce you to some of them. Here comes one 
swinging up the street on his pony ; his long ulster is 
covered with mud ; he has on rubber boots that come 
to his hips. His white necktie has got around under his 
ear. His face beams with such joy as danced in the 
eyes of the seventy when they returned to the Master. 
The hand that grasps yours is not dainty and white, 
like that of the fashionable preacher who spends his 
forenoons over his books and his afternoons over the 
teacups. It is rough and brown and strong. He has 
ridden thirty-five miles, through the mud, since seven 
o'clock this morning. Yesterday he went to a little 
church off in the foothills, built the fire, rang the bell, 
conducted the service, superintended the Sunday school, 



90 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

led the singing for the Christian Endeavor Society, and 
preached in the evening. Here is another, who has just 
returned from a trip through the " cow " counties. Last 
Tuesday you might have seen him on a stage with his 
felt hat drawn down over his eyes trying to catch a few 
winks of sleep between jolts as he drew near the end of 
a journey of 180 miles from the railroad. On Wednes- 
day he went with a local missionary from store to store 
to raise money for the coming year. In the evening he 
told the old story of Calvary to a rough crowd that filled 
the little church to the doors. Thursday he moved on 
fifty miles, and preached to men who had not heard a 
sermon in twenty years. Last year he traveled by 
stage and horseback and boat a distance of 27,000 
miles, and was with his family 37 days out of the 365. 
Here is another. He knows every trout stream within 
twenty-five miles of his station, can kill a deer every 
shot at fifty yards, and preach six nights in a week 
without getting tired. An anarchist in his town, hear- 
ing that President McKinley had been assassinated, 
said, " Fm glad of it ; he ought to have been killed 
long ago." When this home missionary heard what 
his townsman had said, he went to the anarchist's 
store, looked the man straight in the eye, and said, " My 
friend, I understand you said this morning that you were 
glad our President had been shot. You ought to be 
ashamed of yourself. I want to tell you that if I ever 
hear of you saying such a thing again Fll give you the 
worst thrashing you ever had." The anarchist looked 
the preacher over a moment, as if noting the broad 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 91 

shoulders and the meaning of the steady gray eyes ; then 
he apologized, and said he would never say such a thing 
again. That is the way our home missionaries some- 
times preach the gospel of patriotism. 

Have you any idea of the monotony amidst which 
some of those men live and move and have their being ? 
It is one thing to delight over the sparkling pages of 
the Sky Pilot. It is a second thing to visit a lumber 
camp for a day, or spend a few hours in a rollicking 
mining town. It is a third thing to listen to blasphemy 
three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, to give one's 
heart and head and hand to the work with full devotion 
for twelve months and apparently make no more impres- 
sion on the godliness of a town than if a cowboy had 
taken a shot at the moon ; to face the same rocky canyons 
and the same desolate hills month after month and year 
after year. 

Let me tell you a little incident to illustrate the 
dreary lives of some of the people who live in the 
West. A friend of mine was traveling in eastern 
Oregon some months ago, when he found it necessary to 
stop for the night at a little ranch house off on one of 
the ranges. He found the rancher's wife and daughter 
busy with their tasks. While the stranger sat before 
the kitchen stove the mother and daughter, without 
leaving their work for a moment, told with glowing 
faces of a great joy that was soon to be theirs. For 
fourteen long years the mother had slaved on the ranch. 
During all that time she had never so much as visited a 
town, while the little girl had never seen even a store in 



92 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

all her life. Every morning the rancher sprang on his 
pony and was off with his men. He often found it 
necessary to go to the railroad for supplies. He had 
his companionships and his digressions. He was a good 
man and loved his family, but he was thoughtless and 
allowed the wife and daughter to toil on like galley- 
slaves chained to their oars. But at last they were to 
visit the town seventy miles away. The rancher had 
promised them that in the fall they should go with him 
to market his stock. How excited they were as they 
told the stranger about it all! How many things they 
were going to see and buy ! What a good rest they were 
going to have ! Their hands fairly flew as the vision 
floated before them and lured them on. Then, while the 
smiles of anticipation were still on their faces, the 
rancher came in. He was a great rough, broad-shouldered 
man. He had ridden far in search of some missing 
stock, which he had not found. He was disappointed 
and cross. After greeting the visitor he flung himself 
into a chair and began the conversation with two 
blundering sentences which seemed to snap the strings 
of two poor hearts : " You women can't go to town this 
fall ; you'll have to put it off another year." The little 
girl's eyes instantly sought the mother's face in dumb 
bewilderment, and the two stood for a moment as if 
paralyzed by the disappointment. The daughter whis- 
pered, " Mamma, can't we go ?" The mother motioned 
to the child to keep still, and the two turned to stagger 
along toward the old tasks. I suppose they never will 
know what a city really is until they behold that city 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 93 

which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is 
God. 

It is to such people that our home missionaries min- 
ister. It is in such surroundings that they live. It is 
such crushing monotony that some of them must endure. 
Will you be surprised if I tell you that at a spring meet- 
ing of presbytery one of them has been overheard saying 
to another, " I wish it was my turn to go to the Assem- 
bly. I haven't seen my parents for twelve years. And 
my wife wants to visit her old mother just once more 
before she dies." God bless the home missionaries of 
the land, those patient, courageous, devoted soldiers of 
the cross. The nation has no braver defenders and the 
Church in all its ministry no manlier, more faithful men. 

California is a big State geographically and almost 
every other way. Victor Hugo reminds us that the 
land of Job breeds monsters. There the cat becomes a 
tiger, the lizard a crocodile, the pig a rhinoceros, the 
snake a boa constrictor, the nettle a cactus, and the wind 
a simoon. But Hugo had never seen California. Think 
of going out with a hook and line and catching a bass 
weighing three hundred pounds. Think of standing at 
the foot of a granite cliff, and looking straight up to its 
top, three thousand feet above you. Think of driving 
through a grove of trees that rear their heads three 
hundred feet in the sky, and that were growing when 
Jesus stood on the shore of Galilee. It has been aptly 
remarked that California has its eye chronically focussed 
for large dimensions, and that its first conscious throb 
was in a paroxysm of wild speculation. 



94 CENTENNIAL OF HOME 3IISST0NS 

No sooner did the news reach the East that gold had 
been discovered at Sutter's Mill, on the , Sacramento, 
than multitudes began to turn their faces toward the 
West. Lawyers closed their offices, farmers left their 
plows, merchants disposed of their goods and took ship 
for the long voyage. But along with the eager Argo- 
nauts, lustful for gold, went men of equal daring, but 
of more consecrated spirit, whose ambition was the 
saving of souls. The three W/s, as they are affection- 
ately called, had much to do with the beginning of 
our work in California. Gold was discovered in Feb- 
ruary, 1848. In December of that same year Rev. 
Sylvester Woodbridge was on his way to the Golden 
Gate, and in April, 1849, at Benicia, organized the first 
Protestant church in California. Rev. Albert Williams 
followed the first " W." in two months, and in the fol- 
lowing May organized the First Presbyterian Church 
of San Francisco, with six members. The third " W.," 
Rev. James Woods, left New York in May, 1849, and 
reached his destination after a voyage of three months. 
That the experiences of Mr. Woods on the ocean were 
not altogether to his taste we may infer from the ingen- 
uous remark with which he begins his delightful book 
of reminiscences : " The sweetest music I ever heard of 
earthly note or ever expect to hear, until the melody of 
golden harps shall break upon the enraptured spirit, 
was the rattling of the iron cable singing the march of 
the anchor to the bottom of the sea, to grapple with the 
rocks and hold us to safe mooring in the harbor of San 
Francisco." To Mr. Woods belongs the honor of build- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 95 

ing the first Presbyterian church in the State,. at Stock- 
ton, in 1850. 

One is bewildered as he confronts the wealth of 
material which early Presbyterianism in California 
affords. Our home missionaries were as untiring as the 
gold seekers. They sought out the most remote camps 
with the eagerness of prospectors. They seized strat- 
egic points with the foresight and skill of a statesman. 
The scholarly Dr. Scott, fresh from a church of com- 
manding influence in New Orleans, brought to the work 
his splendid gifts of organization and administration. 
He was a leading spirit in laying the foundation of our 
Theological Seminary now located at San Anselmo. 
We may get some idea of the stuff of which those men 
were made by recalling the reply of young Brier, who 
w T hen asked by the Board Secretary where he wanted 
to go, replied, " Give me the hardest field you have." 
He was sent to California. The experiences of the 
missionaries were often exciting, if not always altogether 
pleasant. One preacher, on being shown to his room 
at the hotel, noticed a hole in one of the windowpanes 
at the head of the bed. " How did that get there ? " 
asked the preacher. "Oh," replied the landlord, lan- 
guidly, "a man was shot in that bed yesterday." It 
was a common thing to hear the remark, " We are 
having a very quiet time. No one has been killed for 
a w r eek. It is time we had a free fight and some 
funerals." It took men of grace and grit to move 
calmly through such scenes, and, looking into the faces 
of men who thought no more of shooting down a man 



96 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

than a dog, to tell them that they were on the swift road 
to hell. The synodical missionary for so many years 
(Thomas Fraser) swept his eye over his vast field, which, 
as some one has put it, extended from San Diego to the 
North Pole, and directed his troops like a trained gen- 
eral. Going down into the chaparral and sage brush and 
gravel of southern California he found a little settlement 
composed largely of Spaniards, where some Presbyterian 
work had been begun and abandoned. "Writing back 
to the Board he said, " There are places which the Pres- 
byterian Church must take and hold, regardless of 
expense, as England holds Gibraltar." Back came the 
word indicating a commingling of skepticism in the 
field with confidence in the man. " If you begin that 
work it must be on your own faith, not on ours." The 
work was reorganized. In a few years new people 
began to pour in. A $50,000 church was built. Colo- 
nies were sent out to form other organizations. To-day 
there are upon the floor of this Assembly representatives 
from that settlement in the chaparral bushes which Dr. 
Fraser visited in 1874. They are here representing 
3500 Presbyterian church members, to invite the Gen- 
eral Assembly to meet next year in their beautiful city 
of Los Angeles to partake of such hospitality as only 
Californians know how to give. 

And what shall I say more ? The time would fail 
me to tell of the abundant labors of Willey and Doug- 
las, and Bell and Burrows, and Harmon and Walsworth 
and Alexander, who organized churches, planted schools, 
endured hardships. All these have " obtained a good 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 97 

report," and most of them have entered into their 
reward. 

You who have never been in the Pacific Northwest 
think of Alaska as a frozen waste, which has been 
brought to the world's attention temporarily by the 
discovery of gold, and which in a few years will be 
given over again to the seal hunters and the Esquimaux. 
You who have sailed along the beautiful fiords of the 
northland in an excursion steamer think of it as a land 
of magnificent scenery, of great rivers of ice, by the 
side of which the glaciers of Switzerland would seem 
hardly large enough to supply an ordinary ice chest, 
and which after a few years will become a play ground 
for tourists. I pick up the latest folder, sent out by one 
of the transcontinental railroads, which are always sup- 
posed to speak the truth, and read that " farmers should 
not think of going to Alaska, since no agricultural prod- 
ucts of any kind can be successfully raised in that 
country." A special Government agent recently sent 
out by the Department of Agriculture brings us a very 
different report. He saw in gardens, in Sitka, as fine 
potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and radishes, as 
can be found anywhere on this continent. He met a 
man who had turned out forty-five head of horses in the 
fall of 1899, and the next spring had rounded up forty- 
three of them alive and well. He discovered that in 
one stretch of 400 miles along the Yukon there were 
two million acres of good pasture and farm land. At 
one of the mission stations he asked that the cattle, 
which, by the way, the Indians call " McKinley 
7 



98 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

moose," be turned into the pasture that he might photo- 
graph them, when to his astonishment he found that the 
cattle were soon totally out of sight in the tall grass 
which reached above their backs. He reported to the 
Government that Alaska can furnish homesteads of 320 
acres each to 200,000 families. While in addition to 
all this, it is the judgment of the most conservative men 
there that the gold supply, instead of being almost 
exhausted, as yet has hardly been touched. Long 
before the discovery of gold on the Yukon turned the 
attention of the world toward Alaska, the Presbyterian 
Church was establishing missions, training the natives, 
and building up its splendid industrial plant in Sitka. 
For many years Dr. Lindsley, of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Portland, bore upon his heart the needs of 
the Alaskan Indians. In 1869, when William H. 
Seward was returning from the north, the eager pastor 
met the secretary in Victoria and talked with him con- 
cerning the people of the newly acquired territory. He 
organized the first American church there. He secured 
the money and materials for the first church building 
that was erected in Alaska, and up to the day of his 
death was keenly interested in all that pertained to the 
natives of the north. To him rightly belongs the title 
" The Father of Alaskan Missions." Eev. Dr. S. Hall 
Young, who has returned to his former field of labor, 
began work at Fort Wrangel in 1878. It was there 
that the First Presbyterian Church in Alaska was 
organized in the following year. Dr. Sheldon Jackson 
is recognized throughout our Church as Alaska's mis- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 99 

sionary bishop. He has been with the work practically 
from the beginning. To his indomitable energy and 
clear vision is largely due our success in that fascinating 
field. The President of the United States brought 
honor to himself when he called to the highest office in 
that vast empire a man who went forth as a humble 
home missionary of the Presbyterian Church, Governor 
John G. Brady. 

The remark is sometimes made that the best Indian is 
a dead Indian. Let me tell you a little story. In 
one of the Alaskan towns composed of Christian 
Indians the government is in the hands of twenty 
councilmen suggested by the missionary and elected 
by the natives. On a certain occasion the mission- 
ary called the Indians together, nominated one of 
their number, and asked them to vote. Every Indian 
was given a button. When the ballot box was passed 
every one in turn was to put his hand in the box. If 
he ratified the nomination he was to retain the button, 
but if not the button was to be dropped. Accordingly, 
the box was passed, and to his surprise the missionary 
found that some one had dropped his button. Think- 
ing there might have been a mistake the missionary 
ordered another election, and again one button was 
found in the box. The missionary was perplexed. He 
determined to find out why anyone should oppose his 
nominee. Therefore he requested that the man who 
put in the button should come to his house the next 
afternoon and explain. At the appointed time an 
Indian appeared and said, "I am the man. " "What 

L.crC. 



100 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

objection have you to my nominee?" asked the mission- 
ary. " Well, not long ago that man and I went to 
Bella Bella to trade. The storekeeper gave him a 
dollar too much in change. When he saw it he whis- 
pered to me and said, ' Shall I keep it ? ' I said, i No, 
that would be stealing/ and he gave it back. I think 
that a man who would even stop to ask such a question 
is not fit to be a councilman." 

My friends of New York and Philadelphia and Chi- 
cago and St. Louis, are all your aldermen so exceedingly 
conscientious that they would hesitate about keeping a 
dollar which was not theirs, and would they give it back 
to its rightful owner ? Sometimes returning tourists, 
after spending their time peeking into dance houses and 
investigating the quarters of the ranch Indians, insist 
that missions in Alaska are a failure. Let me tell you 
another story. A few years ago, while on an excursion to 
Alaska, I overheard the passengers criticising the work 
of the missionaries until my cheeks flushed with indig- 
nation. On the Sabbath I was invited to conduct ser- 
vices on shipboard and determined to give the people an 
object lesson. A young Indian from New Metlakahtla, 
to whom I had been introduced, had come on board. I 
consulted with him and arranged a plan into which he 
entered with the greatest eagerness. When the hour 
came for worship the dining saloon was crowded with 
worshipers. I conducted the services up to the time 
for the sermon. Then I said, " When you return to the 
States you will want to tell the people something about 
Alaskan missions. This morning we have with us a 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 101 

full-blood Indian, whose ancestors were such people as 
you have seen in the ranches. I have asked him to tell 
us something about the work of the missionaries among 
his people." The young man arose. His very appear- 
ance commanded instant attention. He had a large 
head. His hair was as black as a raven's wing. He 
was a college graduate and an accomplished musician. 
He had taken a course in law and had just finished the 
middle year in the Theological Seminary. In choice 
English he spoke for over half an hour, telling of the 
marvelous changes that had come to his people, who, 
instead of being the savages that William Duncan 
had found there forty years before, had their canneries, 
their stores, their printing presses, their schools, and 
their churches. As he closed his address he said with 
flashing eye, " And now I want you to know that all 
this has come about not through the Government, for 
the Government was here before, and not through the 
traders, for they have brought us only their vices ; but 
through the simple preaching of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ." The people listened with breathless interest, 
and when the service was over one who had been the 
loudest in denunciation of the missionaries came forward 
and said : " I have been converted." I have the pleas- 
ure of introducing to you to-day that young Indian, with 
whose name many of you are now familiar, the Rev. 
Edward Marsden, now laboring among his people at 
Saxman, Alaska. 

It makes one's blood tingle to the finger tips to know 
of the noble men and women who have gone to the far 



102 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

northland with the blue banner of Presbyterianism just 
beneath the flag of the cross. Away up within the 
Arctic Circle went young Dr. Marsh with his bride, 
where the monarch whose throne is of ice and in whose 
dark audience chamber flashes the Aurora, built about 
them great ramparts of snow and for nine long months 
shut them in. Gambel and his wife, on the way to their 
lonely station on St. Lawrence Island, found graves in 
the depths of an Arctic sea. At Juneau and Wrangle 
and Skaguay and Nome and the rest, our home mission- 
aries are at work endeavoring to lay deep and strong the 
foundations of a great empire. How can we sit with 
folded arms or offer perfunctory prayers when new lands 
are being discovered, great sacrifices are being made in 
the name of Jesus, and vast possibilities await the put- 
ting forth of our hands ? 

Even a hasty review of the home mission enterprise 
on the Pacific Coast produces some profound impres- 
sions. The returns are quick, abundant, and substantial. 
In religious work it is much as it is in soil culture. One 
year a traveler through the Yakima Valley in Wash- 
ington or the chaparral country of Lower California 
might see only vast desolate stretches, where even a vul- 
ture could hardly exist. Five years afterwards the same 
traveler passing through the same country might find 
himself in such a garden spot as his eyes never looked 
upon. The simple turning of a little stream from its 
channel is able to work such wonders as we used to think 
could be read about only in fairy books. Consider some 
of the lightning transformations which have taken place. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 103 

Less than fifty years ago a home missionary stood under 
a live oak across the bay from San Francisco and de- 
livered the first sermon ever preached in the little vil- 
lage that was springing up there. To-day the city of 
Oakland is a city of churches and the First Presbyterian 
Church is a tower of strength. Fifty-three years ago 
to-morrow a home missionary organized the First Pres- 
byterian Church of San Francisco with six members. 
Only a few years passed by, when a member of that 
congregation gave $300,000 to equip our Theological 
Seminary at San Anselmo. Forty years ago the Board 
of Home Missions decided to invest some money in a 
little town on the Willamette River in Oregon. It put 
in $400 the first year, $300 the second year, and $200 
in each of the two following years. And this was the 
result, financially stated : In the five years, from 1889 
to 1894 inclusive, that one church in which the Board 
of Home Missions invested a total of $1100, gave back 
to the cause of home missions, in round numbers, the 
sum of $45,000. It raised for the other agencies of the 
church, including congregational expenses, the sum of 
$250,000, and gave another quarter of a million to 
equip one of the finest academies to be found between 
the oceans. Even a California real estate boomer has no 
such investments to offer. 

I feel that it would be unpardonable, even in the 
most cursory review, to omit mention of the fact that 
into the membership of the church which the Board 
of Home Missions started away off there in Oregon 
forty years ago, there came two men of large and con- 



104 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

secrated wealth, whose names deserve to be known and 
held in honor by Presbyterians everywhere. William 
S. Ladd and Henry W. Corbett for over a quarter of a 
century gave with princely generosity to all the agencies 
of our denomination. And it is generally understood 
that there is scarcely a Presbyterian church building in 
the States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, in which 
those royal men did not invest at least a hundred dol- 
lars each. 

Well, if the churches on the Pacific Coast are thus 
rolling in wealth, how comes it that we make our pitiful 
appeals in the East for help and urge Sunday school 
scholars to save up their pennies to send the gospel to 
the destitute places on the Pacific Coast ? 

Let me tell you. I have simply been trying to give 
you some idea of the possible yield if only the soil were 
brought under cultivation. We have a rich, vast terri- 
tory, but it is sparsely settled as yet, and the men of 
wealth in our churches are very few. Out of the States 
of California, Oregon, and Washington might be carved 
forty New Jerseys with enough over for three States 
the size of Massachusetts. In your Synod of New 
Jersey you have over 75,000 Presbyterians and over 
300 churches, most of them strong and well equipped ; 
while we, covering a territory forty times as large, have 
only a little over half as many members, and our really 
strong churches could be counted on the fingers of your 
two hands. Oregon, which covers a territory as large 
as the States of New York and Pennsylvania combined, 
has only five Presbyterian churches that have a mem- 



CENTENNIAL OF HONE MISSIONS 105 

bership of even 200. We have single counties as large 
as the entire State of Delaware with only one Presby- 
terian missionary within its bounds. How stupendous 
the task ! How vast the possibilities ! With what 
eagerness the Church should spring to the work ! 

The eyes of multitudes in the East are now being 
turned to our western sea. The Puget Sound country 
is attracting hosts of bright, brainy, busy youths from 
the older States. Lumbermen are coming from Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin, where the forests have almost dis- 
appeared, and are buying up the rich timber lands of 
Oregon. California is now recognized as the w T orld ? s 
fruit garden. And all three States are only at the 
threshold of their greatness. You got a hint during the 
war with Spain of the place we are to occupy some day 
in the national life. The ship that led the fleet right 
over the sunken mines at Manila and to its splendid 
victory bore a name of magic, for we of the coast had 
named it after one of our cities, the Olympia. At San- 
tiago the one battleship that called forth the world's 
unanimous admiration and wonder by means of its mar- 
velous 13,000-mile voyage and its inspiring dash, we 
had constructed on the western coast and christened 
the Oregon. The Pacific Coast has suddenly assumed 
a new significance. As by the turn of a kaleidoscope 
the geography of the world has been shaken into a new 
combination. All the world forces are seen gathered 
about the western sea, as if preparing for humanity's 
final contest. The commercial powers of the world are 
there. The engine-makers of America are contesting 



106 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

with the engine-makers of England. Flour-makers 
from Minnesota are in Japan contesting with flour- 
makers from Russia. Great ship freighters are now on 
the stocks in the American yards which are intended 
to help win for America the world's commercial su- 
premacy. The political powers of the earth are gathered 
about the western sea, as if preparing for the final con- 
flict. China is there with such possibilities of evil as 
make us afraid to think ; with such possibilities of good 
as to bewilder our hopes. Japan is there, alert and 
aggressive. England is there with mighty fleets and 
vast interests. Germany and France and the Nether- 
lands all are there, eager and expectant. Russia, resist- 
less and mysterious, has at last made its way overland 
to the scene of greatest interest ; while in a day the 
United States has made its way over sea and confronts 
the rest. There they seem to pause for a moment 
awaiting a signal. Who has the audacity to prophesy 
days and ways ? Who is so faithless as to question the 
result ? The religions of the world are gathered about 
the western sea getting in readiness for the culminating 
battle. The followers of Confucius are there by the 
million. Buddha's monks long ago carried the message 
of their master to the lands that fringe the Pacific. The 
followers of the Arabian prophet, numbering twenty 
millions in southern China alone, are pushing their 
campaign with fanatical enthusiasm. While the soldiers 
of the cross, moving westward from their Asiatic home, 
have now almost encompassed the globe, and with the 
resistless strength of wealth and intelligence and spirit- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 107 

ual power at their command, have sent ahead their 
scouts for the battle of Armageddon. Twenty-five 
years from now the conflict will be at its height, and 
in fifty years the victory may be won. Then let the 
Church at once mass its strength there on the Pacific. 
What general ever acquired triumphs by sending camp- 
followers and the disabled to the front. Send your 
strongest into the mountains and to the North where 
men dig for gold, and into the forests where the future 
cities are to be. Strengthen the school of the prophets 
at the Golden Gate. Give us strong Christian colleges 
that shall command the great empire for Christ. Then 
eager hands will carry the banner of the cross on and on 
toward the farther west until it halts at last on Calvary, 
whence it started so long ago. 

In the village of Chamouni, nestled trustfully in a 
Swiss villa, is a beautiful bronze monument erected to 
the memory of Saussure, the Swiss geologist. Balmat, 
the guide, stands at one side looking into Saussure's 
face, w T ith his outstretched finger pointing to some object 
in the distance. The geologist with wide-open eyes is 
looking in the direction indicated by the guide. In- 
stinctively the traveler turns and looks upward, when 
behold ! there stands the monarch of the Alps as calm 
as if made for eternity and as beautiful as if fresh from 
the hand of God. I would that some such piece of 
bronze were given a place in this throbbing commercial 
center of the world's life. I would place upon its ped- 
estal the prophetic words of Thomas H. Benton, who, 
turning toward the Rockies, said, " There lies the East. 



108 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

There lies India." I would that the outstretched un- 
tiring finger might remind your financiers that yonder 
are their opportunities ; might be to your statesmen an 
unfailing inspiration, and that it might arouse the hosts 
of Christ for their consummate triumph. 



Tuesday Morning, May 20th 



THE PAST YEAB" 



ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE 

STANDING COMMITTEE ON 

HOME MISSIONS 

EEV. EICHAED S. HOLMES, D. D. 
Pittsburgh, Penna. 



ADDRESS OF THE REV. RICHARD S. 
HOLMES, D. D. 

Chairman of the Standing Committee on Home Missions. 



I have a great cause to represent at a great epoch in 
its history. I say this because this is a great epoch 
in the history of the American Union. The United 
States have become a great domain ; their Government 
is a great government ; their executive head is the most 
powerful sovereign that rules a nation, albeit he has 
no throne, and is sovereign only as all law-abiding citi- 
zens are sovereign ; sovereign over self for the interests 
of the Republic. He will be among us to-night, a plain 
man of the people, called President, a title by which 
also hundreds of his fellow-citizens are called, lending 
the influence of the position to which Providence has 
brought him, in recognition of the worth of the work 
which is carried on by the Board of Home Missions of 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States of Amer- 
ica. In his person this great domain will to-night be 
represented on the platform of our General Assembly. 

I emphasize this fact of domain because, extending 
beyond our own territorial limits, with foothold and in- 
fluence in the islands of the eastern and western oceans, 
it lays on the Church of the living God a burden of 

in 



112 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

responsibility for the character of that influence which 
is not measurable by any standards which the world 
possesses. As a part of the Church of God we must 
share in that responsibility, and the agency by which 
we shall carry our part of the burden, if we carry it at 
all, is our Board of Home Missions. 

In considering this question of domain I cannot ex- 
clude the thought of the history which we and our 
fathers have wrought as an addition to the history of 
the world. Of history and domain I believe we have 
at first thought no adequate conception. A glance at 
the efforts which have been made to write our history 
may help us a little. Mr. Bancroft undertook to tell 
the story of the beginnings of the nation, and after fill- 
ing so many volumes that the busy men of to-day have 
no time to read them and hardly to glance through 
them, he died, leaving his work unfinished. Mr. 
McMaster essayed to write for this generation the story 
of our life since the Revolutionary War, and after giving 
eighteen years of his life to its elucidation and issuing 
seven great volumes, has only reached the year 1830. 
Add now to this a brief consideration of our geographi- 
cal area. It extends from the farthest northern point 
of Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, and from Porto Rico 
to the Golden Gate. Do you comprehend the immensity 
of that territory ? I do not believe we are awake to a 
sense of our evangelistic cares. They are coextensive 
with our great domain, and the vastness of their detail 
for practical treatment is illustrated by the efforts to 
write our history. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 113 

Three Americans once dining on a Fourth of July in 
Paris, filled with a sense of our geographical greatness, 
and perhaps also otherwise filled, offered a toast to our 
country. The chairman spoke first, and said : " Here's 
to the United States, bounded on the north by the 
British possessions, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, 
on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the 
Pacific Ocean." Before it could be drunk another 
cried, " Hold on, Mr. Chairman, let me give that toast : 
Here's to the United States, bounded on the north by the 
North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, on the east 
by the rising, and on the west by the setting sun." 
And then the third man said : " Now let me try : Here's 
to the United States, bounded on the north by the 
Aurora Borealis, on the south by the Procession of the 
Equinoxes, on the east by Primeval Chaos, and on the 
west by the Day of Judgment." 

Well, those Americans were true to their proclivities ; 
they were good boasters, and a Yankee who is not a 
boaster denies his birthright. But there was a vein of 
truth under all that, through which is flowing a tide of 
responsibilities mighty and inescapable, and they who 
are charged with the work of evangelization do in some 
sense realize it. 

From Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico is from the 
Aurora to the Equinox, and over all that stretch of 
earth we are to spread the story of the gospel of Jesus 
in such a way that it shall command the attention and 
reach the hearts of those multitudes which enter yearly 
into our valleys and prairies from European lands where 

8 



114 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

poverty and oppression, and ignorance and degradation 
have reduced the souls of men to a condition little 
above the state which characterizes " primeval chaos," 
and for whose answer at the " day of judgment " we are 
to be held responsible in some measure. The vastness 
of our domain and the responsibilities that it brings to 
our own Church makes it right to say that this is a 
great epoch in the history of a great cause. 

It is a great epoch because it is the beginning of 
a new century of work for home missions, and almost 
in point of time co-equal with the opening of the century 
which will be the greatest the world has ever known. 
We are celebrating with eclat the centennial of home 
missions. It is a time of hand-shaking, and of speech- 
making, and of rejoicing, and of manifesting the Amer- 
ican spirit, even in connection with our assembling for 
purposes which are only religious. The history of the 
one hundred years has been told. Will you pardon me 
if I mention, once more, Henry Kendall ? It can be in 
no way derogatory to any man to say that he was the 
prince of organizers in an era of organizing and organi- 
zations. I need ask no pardon when I speak the name 
of Cyrus Dickson. There was a great man, my fellow 
Presbyterians. Some of you even yet remember his 
marvelous eloquence. As orator for the religious inter- 
ests of the Church of his love he was not surpassed in 
power to sway assemblies in the whole past century, and 
I prophesy that the coming century will not produce 
his superior, even though, if by reason of superior ad- 
vantages, it does produce his peer. It is no reflection 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 115 

upon the secretaries of to-day, thinking of the century- 
past, to say, " Other men have labored and ye have 
entered into their labors." 

One hundred years is a small time measured against 
the two thousand years of Christian history ; but gauged 
by what those hundred years have accomplished in the 
work of world evangelization, they are the longest hun- 
dred years of time. Yea, longer than any thousand 
years that have preceded them, and the prophecy that 
they make of what the coming hundred years will be 
makes it right to say that this centennial marks a great 
epoch in the history of home missions in the United 
States. 

It is a great epoch because at this very hour 
the scope of home mission work is changing. The 
problem before the Church in our country has never ere 
this been what it is at this moment. I think we will 
do well to consider this matter with more than ordinary 
attention. Home mission work at the outset of the last 
century was one thing, and, while that still remains an 
interest that may not be forgotten, another phase of 
home mission work has forced itself up into the sight 
of the Church, and must not be left either unseen or 
unnoticed. The cause of the changing scope of our 
home mission work is the rapid increase in numbers 
of an unevangelized foreign population that represents 
forces hostile and repugnant to the genius of American 
civilization. That increase of a peculiar immigrant 
population sets before the Church, even while we are 
gathered here, a work whose magnitude is appalling. 



116 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

That work the Church must do ; and our Church must 
do her part of it by her Boards of Home Missions and 
of Publication and Sabbath-school Work, or, leaving it 
undone, be in danger of submersion by the inflowing 
wave of ignorance, godlessness, and anarchism. When 
the century opened we carried the gospel to no Ameri- 
can heathen, for we had none save our own American 
Indians, and for too much of the century the love and 
life of Elliott the apostle has been forgotten, and the 
doctrine born of war — " The only good Indian is a dead 
Indian " — has ruled in the hearts of the masses of men. 
But to-day our country is being filled with heathen from 
the Old World. 

One hundred years ago New England, New York, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia were moving 
into the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi and 
along the shore-lines of the great lakes. The missionary 
organizations of a century ago had but one object — to send 
missionaries in the wake of migrating families that they 
might not get beyond the hearing of the gospel, and to 
provide money to help the frontiersman to build himself 
a little church in the wilderness. The Church followed 
the pioneer. The pioneer carried the axe and the mis- 
sionary carried the Bible, and out of the work of these 
two has come our magnificent Christian civilization. 
The pioneer laid low the forest, and cleared the acres, 
and planted the crops, but left a place for the rude 
church edifice where the word of God might be preached 
when the missionary should come. And he always came. 
With great fidelity the Board of Home Missions, then 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 117 

only a feeble organization, made sure that he should go. 
The axe cleared the forests of the West, and the Home 
Board made the voice of the missionary heard after only 
a little while in every clearing. That was home mis- 
sion work seventy-five years ago. But that work is 
broadening. 

We still are doing as the pioneer missionary did, 
but not to the exclusion of other, and even more im- 
portant, work. The American pioneer is in the West 
yet, but he is not the man from the young East of a 
century ago, but his descendant born among the moun- 
tains and the forests. To such the Church is still send- 
ing the gospel, and from such are still going out into 
deeper wilds those whom the Church must follow. 
Yet so much has been done in the work of reclaiming 
our territory for civilization, so magnificent are the 
cities which have sprung up all over that empire which 
Marcus Whitman saved to the Republic, that it can 
almost be said " the wild and woolly West " has ceased 
to be. A Theological Seminary on the Pacific Coast, 
and that one beyond the Mississippi at Omaha, will be 
sending ministers back into our eastern churches within 
a quarter of a century, and colleges that will produce 
scholars the equal of the best we could make here in the 
first half of the century w T ill mold the character of our 
whole vast western area. It is still necessary, and for 
a time will be, to send our money over the Rocky 
Mountains at the rate of one hundred thousand dollars 
annually. But this will not be for long. The strong 
support of the present will soon develop all up and 



118 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

down our Pacific Coast from Portland to Los Angeles 
self-supporting churches that will become the sponsors 
for home mission work in their own bounds. For 
already we are beginning to see that the wave of civili- 
zation has really flowed over the continent from ocean 
to ocean, and that the reflow has begun. The contri- 
bution by the First Church of Portland, Oregon, of 
more than one hundred thousand dollars to the work 
of home missions proves that the reflow has begun. 
Soon we as a Church must turn our attention to the 
exceptional populations in the very centers where we 
in all the years of the century have been strongest, and 
where we have fondly thought the work of evangeliza- 
tion was done. The demand for home missionaries is 
from our own firesides now ; for missionaries who can 
speak the gospel in foreign tongues. In every great 
industrial center, in every place where wealth and power 
have set great manufacturing enterprises on foot, there 
is to-day a teeming population — Italian, Belgian, Croa- 
tian, Slovak, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Bohemian, Russian 
—that can be numbered by hundreds of thousands, that 
must be taught the instincts of the American citizen, 
that must be evangelized and civilized, and made to 
understand that American liberty is not grounded in 
personal caprice, or desire, or love of license, but in the 
self-denial, and sacrifice, and surrender of each to the 
other for the good of all, which are the foundations of 
our institutions and the direct outgrowths of our Chris- 
tianity. The work of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America is no longer a little work 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 119 

that means the spending of a few thousands of dollars 
annually on the extension of our Church into our west- 
ern domain in order to keep pace with the march of 
migration from the East. That work means to-day the 
spending of hundreds of thousands, yea, of millions, if 
need be, as the result of the open door that we have set 
before the nations of the earth. We might as well wake 
up to the fact that God has given this nation mighty 
wealth to be used for the evangelization of men, and not 
for spending alone in the things that go to beautify our 
homes and satisfy our own desires. If there is one 
eternal truth it is this : this world's money is God's. 
He made its acquisition and possession possible. To 
gather it is lawful : he gave us the power to do that 
very thing ; to hoard it is niggardliness and un likeness 
to God : he dispenses eternally with unsparing hand ; 
to squander it is wickedness ; to use it for good, as one 
walks over God's highway, is to achieve moral grandeur. 
We might as well wake up to the fact that our Home 
Board is soon to need for its work in a single year not 
one million dollars only, but two or three millions, if 
it does the work which God is setting before us by the 
progress of emigration. I wish it were possible to make 
a missionary trust whose capital stock should be the 
tithe of the income of every Christian man and woman 
in America ; whose business should be the evangeliza- 
tion of our un evangelized masses ; whose dividends 
should be manifest in rescued slums and purified corpo- 
rate purpose, and the cessation of vice and drunkenness 
and crime. I believe I am safe in saying that President 



120 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Roosevelt and his Attorney General would never insti- 
tute suit in United States courts to dissolve that trust. 

The work is on us. God has transplanted the poor, 
the oppressed, the debased, the ignorant, from the govern- 
ments beyond the sea, and set them in our cities, along 
our river valleys, in our mountains, and upon our 
prairies. We have given them the advantage of liberty, 
and they are among us without a knowledge of its first 
principles and without a thought of a spiritual reli- 
gion. With hate in their hearts for authority, as they 
have known the meaning of authority in the Old World, 
and with eyes that blaze in a wild desire for equalization 
in property and power with the rich and prosperous, by 
whose side they are placed by our institutions as free- 
men in a free state, they are a menace to those very 
institutions by which they are accorded their not yet 
understood privileges. The work of the Church of 
Christ in our land to-day is for the perpetuity of the 
American Union, and one of the factors in the preserva- 
tion of our national liberties is the influence which will 
be wielded in the coming century by the home mis- 
sionary preacher and teacher. The perpetuity of the 
American Republic, — let us not forget it, — the Church 
established and strong in the domain east of the Missis- 
sippi, and the Church to be established and to be strong 
in the domain west of the great river, has but one inter- 
est to-day : it is the Republic. 

For the Republic is threatened by evils to which the 
Church must not be oblivious. Will you have the in- 
ventory of them ? Commercialism is an evil. It does 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 121 

not belong to the great cities alone, but is found wher- 
ever men congregate and the click of the telegraph is 
heard. What does commercialism mean ? It means 
the opening of the morning paper first by thousands on 
thousands of men and women and young people out of 
every walk of life to the columns where stock quotations 
are found. It means greed. Can I define it? No : but 
I can illustrate it. Commercialism is a dollar on edge 
rolling away as fast as it can go, and a hundred men 
and women after it in a wild, jostling chase. That is 
an evil. Socialism is an evil because it is championed 
by a propagandism utterly out of tune with the key 
note of our history, and the inharmony of the voice of 
that propagandism is as discordant on the prairies west 
of the Mississippi as it is in the cities east of the Alle- 
ghenies. 

Anarchism is an evil which grows directly out of the 
unbridled passions of men who are not subject to the 
gospel of Jesus, and unbridled passion is dangerous 
everywhere, whether in a mining camp in Arizona or 
in a hall in New Jersey. These evils grow out of the 
condition that has resulted from our material develop- 
ment since the Civil War. With that development 
beyond anything the world ever saw made in so short a 
time by one people, and so rapid that we are drunk 
with a sense of our power ; with fortunes made in a 
day by youths and servants in the wild whirl of the 
stock exchanges of the country ; with social standards 
set up in certain great urban centers that measure a man 
by his bank account, and not by his mental or moral 



122 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

equipment; with the money-getting fever burning in 
the veins of all classes of society and causing schemes 
wilder than the wildest dreams of the financial experi- 
menteers of the French Revolution ; with trusts and com- 
binations capitalized at sums that are incomprehensible 
to the ordinary mind ; with secularization so controlling 
the public school systems of our nation that the super- 
intendent of the schools of the city of Chicago, at a 
memorial service held for the late President on that 
solemn Thursday when he was buried, was compelled to 
omit one faintest allusion to the foundation of the char- 
acter of William McKinley as in the word of God, and 
did not dare to repeat those last utterances which have 
endeared his memory more than all else he ever spoke ; 
with the political systems of our cities rotten to the 
core, and thieves openly claiming an income from their 
nefariousness of from $4000 to $25,000 annually because 
of the purchased protection of the police ; with public 
morality steadily declining ; it is high time for the 
Church to awake to a sense of the burden that is upon 
her, and to the fact that our whole territory is mission- 
ary territory, and our whole people are in need of the 
gospel. These are the considerations that make me say 
the scope of home mission work is changing, and the 
fact makes this a great epoch in home mission history. 

I said the Church has but one interest to-day. I 
repeat that : that one interest is the Republic. The 
American people must be a Christian people if they are 
to remain as the leaders of the liberties of the world. 
But let me prevent anyone thinking there is a pessimist's 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 123 

heart under that sentiment. I do not despair of the 
Republic, because I do not despair of God. While 
God lives to raise up missionaries to live and love and 
die as our home missionaries have lived and loved and 
died in the century gone by, we need not despair of the 
Republic. Think of the amazing, the unparalleled devo- 
tion of the men who have borne the old blue banner to 
the Rockies and beyond. " There are ministers educated 
as well as the best of us who are living almost as if 
buried in primeval forests, sixty, seventy, one hundred 
miles from the railroads, and who work year in and 
year out for less money than would satisfy a Pennsylva- 
nia miner." A home missionary from Idaho said to me 
in my study a Aveek ago, " You think out here that Ralph 
Connor's Black JRoeh and Shy Pilot are only stories 
spun from a man's brain. They are not. They are 
pictures of what has been going on for a half century 
over our whole far western domain. Many a man has 
died as the Sky Pilot died, beloved and bewailed with a 
great lamentation." You heard Dr. E. P. Hill tell 
yesterday with great power of the work done beyond 
the Rocky Mountains. Dr. HilPs predecessor of long 
ago, the pioneer of that home mission church, rode 
eighty miles twice a month to preach to the handful of 
people that was known then and is yet as the First 
Presbyterian Church of Portland, Oregon. Ah ! but 
that work paid. It is a handful of people no longer, 
but the splendid church that has given in its history 
$100,000 to home missions, and has given one of its 
pastors for Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions 



124 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

and another to lead your thought in the closing hour of 
the great celebration yesterday. 

You sat for the first day of this Assembly under the 
direction of the Moderator of the last General Assembly, 
Dr. Minton, of the Presbytery of San Francisco. Go 
with me in thought to a little room in California. In 
it we shall find gathered the whole Presbytery of San 
Francisco, three members, solemnly transacting business 
on one side of the stove, and one of the members is 
rocking the baby's cradle with his foot while he ar- 
ranges presbyterial documents with his hands, and 
over on the other side of the stove his wife is cooking 
the dinner. That was the organization which in time 
was to give to the General Assembly sitting in the old- 
est Presbyterian city of the United States in the last 
year of the first century of home missions its first Mod- 
erator for the twentieth century. 

Think of a man selling his farm and moving one hun- 
dred and twenty-five miles to make a new home, that 
thus he might give to his family the religious privilege 
of a home mission church. While such men live 
religion will not die in the United States. No ; I do 
not despair of the Republic. It will-not die while such 
work by such a church shall go on. And it will go on. 
There is no stopping it. You may give your money in 
large sums : it will go on. You may give your money 
in paltry driblets of sums : it will go on. With money 
or without it, it will go on. There was a time nineteen 
hundred years ago when this work of saving a country 
began. The work begun in Galilee by the Nazarene 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 125 

was in poverty but in power. " Silver and gold have I 
none " has been the cry of many a successor of Peter. 
But the work has gone right on. If it shall still have 
to go on in poverty be sure it will still go on in power. 
There is no stopping it : God is behind it, and that 
behind which God is goes on. 



ADDKESS ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF 
HOME MISSIONS 



BY THE 



KEV. JOHN DIXON, D. D., New York, N. Y. 
(Assistant Secretary of the Board of Home Missions) 



It has fallen to my lot to bring to this General 
Assembly the hearty greetings of the officers and mem- 
bers of the Board of Home Missions. We are grateful 
to our divine Master for his favor to us and to the work 
committed to us during the year that is gone and 
during all the years of the past. We seek anew the 
sympathy and fervent prayers of the Church, that in 
the administration of the supreme trust committed to 
the Board of Home Missions there may be fidelity, 
wisdom, an unwavering faith, and a brightening hope. 

This is the centennial year of the organized work of 
missions in our own land. Yesterday we had the rare 
privilege of listening to three addresses which set forth 
in eloquent and stirring tones the progress of home 
missions from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific Coast. 
It is a glorious history which should forever dissipate 
any feeling of doubt or of discouragement. It gives us 
greatest cheer and brightest hope for the days that are 

126 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 127 

to come. The God of our fathers is our God, and will 
be the God of our children to the remotest generation. 

We have just listened to the report of the Assembly's 
committee on Home Missions, and the stirring address 
of the chairman. A new note of encouragement has 
been struck, and gratitude deepens while faith grows 
stronger. To-night, under the welcome encouragement 
of the presence and greetings of the President of the 
United States, we shall study afresh the way by which 
God has made us a great nation, and take a look into 
the future, so that we may gird ourselves anew for the 
sublime work of evangelizing America. America is to 
take up the " white man's burden " and do the largest 
part of the work in evangelizing and civilizing the 
whole world. 

SHADOWS UPON THE YEAR 

During the past year shadows deep ana dark have 
fallen upon our pathway, and our hearts are sad over 
the taking away of trusted and beloved leaders from 
our council and cooperation. The death of Dr. Purves, 
who was elected a member of the Board shortly after 
he became pastor of this church, was the first great loss 
of the year. His predecessor, Dr. John Hall, was for 
twenty-seven years a member of the Board and for 
eighteen years its president. It was his custom to 
attend every meeting of the Assembly and to preside 
at the annual meeting in the interests of home missions. 
We shall not soon forget his splendid presence and his 
supreme address on those occasions. We thus feel that 
in this strong and influential congregation the cause of 



128 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

home missions has special sympathy and support. 
The coming of Dr. Purves strengthened this. When 
it was proposed to celebrate the centennial of home 
missions we naturally turned to this church. We are 
here met by his invitation and that of the session, but 
he himself has gone, gone from service to reward, from 
earth to heaven. We rejoice that in the present pastor 
the cause of home missions has such an earnest friend 
and strong supporter, and we are confident that the good 
work which has been carried on here for many a year 
will be maintained and increased in the days to come. 

But the afflicting hand of our God was laid upon us 
again most heavily when he recently removed from 
us Mrs. Frederick H. Pierson, the secretary of the 
Woman's Board. She was a woman of deepest conse- 
cration and of great natural and spiritual gifts. Her 
loss is well nigh irreparable. She was a leader of great 
wisdom, exhaustless energy, clear vision, and broad 
sympathy. The work which is done by the officers of 
the Board before an audience and in the sight of the 
Church is important, but much more difficult and of 
greater importance is that which is done round the 
conference table in the office of the secretary. There 
plans are laid, problems solved, difficulties overcome, of 
which the Church knows only the result, but cannot 
know the time, thought, prayer, and ability necessary 
to secure that result. At these conferences Mrs. Pier- 
son was wise, sympathetic, far-seeing to a marked 
degree, and every day makes us realize with increasing 
emphasis how great is our loss. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 129 

The treasurer reports that he has received during the 
past year for the current work of home missions the 
sum of $803,662.96. If to this sum be added the 
amount received by the synods administering their 
own home mission work, which sum so far as reported 
to us amounts to $136,632.90, we have a total of 
$940,295.86. The treasurer is able to report that all 
the obligations of the Board of Home Missions have 
been met, and that there remains in his hands a balance 
of $4586.82. This is the fourth successive year that he 
has been able to report no debt. Not since the reunion 
in 1870 has the Home Board been enabled to come to 
the Assembly with such a record. It speaks volumes 
for the skill and ability of our treasurer whose praise I 
am glad to speak. 

Of the total sum of $803,662.96 received during the 
year, $339,526.38 was obtained by the Woman's Board. 
This shows an increase of receipts upon that of last 
year which amounts to $57,778 ; of this sum $49,725.42 
is to be credited to the Woman's Board and $8,032.87 
as the advance made by the Home Board. 

ANALYSIS OF THE EECEIPTS 

A still further analysis of the receipts of the Home 
Board starts some very interesting questions. We find 
that the congregational offerings have increased only 
$1966. In this advance, though small, we rejoice, for 
our main source of dependence, after all, must be from 
the congregational offerings. The societies of the 
Church, including the Sabbath schools and the Young 



130 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Peoples' Societies, show a loss, as compared with that of 
last year, of $1385. This loss is wholly in the receipts 
from the Sunday schools. Taking then the offerings 
from the churches and all of the organizations within 
the Church, we find that the advance for the past year 
is $581. This statement is made with a view to arrest 
the attention of the churches to a serious fact. Why is 
it that our churches grow in membership and in wealth 
and do not make corresponding progress in their gifts to 
missions ? The pastors may not plead that the societies 
within the Church are making marked progress in their 
gifts so that a less rapid progress should justly be ex- 
pected from the Church offerings. The suggestive fact 
is that we are making progress so slowly that it is im- 
perative either that new plans should be devised by 
pastors or, what is better, that there shall be a baptism 
upon both minister and people. 

We have had more than usual difficulty in deciding 
upon the appropriations to the presbyteries for the com- 
ing year. The amount just voted by the Board is 
$378,360, which is $22,043 more than was appro- 
priated last year, and yet is $46,160 less than the 
presbyteries asked for after they had cut and scaled all 
that they dared to do or thought possible. But are we 
warranted in making an advance of $22,000 ? Not if 
we are to judge solely by the contributions of last year. 
We put faith in larger hope. We are not unmindful of 
the promise given by the Board to the Church four years 
ago, that the trust committed to us would be so admin- 
istered as that no large debt would be incurred. We 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 131 

intend to be faithful to our pledge ; yet we cannot help 
but feel that when the mind and conscience and heart 
of the Church are confronted with the figures I have 
just given, there will be a greater consecration of gifts. 
The responsibility is a mutual one ; it does not rest 
wholly upon the Board. The pastors and elders must 
do their whole duty in instructing the people and per- 
suading them to a full discharge of their duty. This 
centennial year which recalls the glorious things which 
God has wrought for our Church and country will surely 
awaken gratitude, supply courage, and bring a new and 
greater devotion. 

NO DISAPPOINTMENT SEEN 

Our faith and hope will not be disappointed. We are 
confident that although we have taken this step in ad- 
vance the Church will respond, and next year, even as 
during these last years, the treasurer will report all obli- 
gations met and a balance in the treasury. With regard 
to the synods carrying on their own home mission work, 
it is not mine to speak other than to say that the Board 
follows them with the deepest interest and cordial ap- 
proval ; would that there were more of them. During 
the past year Michigan has undertaken self-support. It 
will be no holiday task, but she has entered upon it after 
such carefulness of plan as well as heartiness of devo- 
tion that she is bound to succeed. The synod makes 
the treasurer of the Board its treasurer, who makes sepa- 
rate deposit of the money committed to him. That is 
done without expense to the synod. It is the purpose 



132 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

of the churches in Michigan to keep up their contribu- 
tions to the general work of the Church, and while the 
Board may not expect as large sums as it has received 
in the past, it is especially gratified that the tie which 
binds the synod to the work of the whole Church is 
to be close and binding. 

Nebraska has devised a plan of cooperation with the 
Board which is not yet fully matured, but which prom- 
ises excellent results. 

We are much pleased to report to the Assembly that 
thirty churches ask for less this year than they received 
last year. This is by no means the only or even the 
main test of progress, but it is a good sign. This ad- 
vance has been brought about in many instances by the 
diligent endeavors of the home mission committees 
and the pastors, and in too many instances at the per- 
sonal expense of the pastor. While we are compelled 
to admire such devotion on the part of insufficiently 
paid missionaries, yet we do not commend and cannot 
encourage it for the simple reason that the Church as a 
whole and the local church should do their full share 
of providing the necessary funds and leaving pastors to 
contribute only their proper proportion. A year ago 
we thought we were hitching our wagon to a star of 
the first magnitude when we suggested that in this cen- 
tennial year we hoped we might be fortunate enough to 
report 100 churches to this Assembly as having reached 
self-support. If we had had a few more days in which 
to receive reports I doubt not the full 100 would have 
been reached. We are glad to say that 89 have bidden 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 133 

us an affectionate but not tearful farewell, have quit 
" boarding " and started housekeeping, so as not only to 
care for their own but also to provide help for the 
church that has need. But more than progress in finan- 
cial strength, and even better than attaining to self-sup- 
port, is the spiritual record of the year. God has been 
pleased to pour out his spirit upon scores and hundreds 
of missionary churches and many souls have been con- 
verted to God and have confessed Christ. This is the 
goal of all our labors, for which the minister of Jesus 
Christ can well afford to be poor and lonely, suffer hard- 
ship, and even endure persecution. 

BLESSINGS IN PORTO RICO 

So far as my personal observation goes, the field which 
has been most wonderfully blessed in the winning of 
souls to Christ is in Porto Rico. There during the last 
few months many persons have been received on confes- 
sion of faith. May I describe a communion season there 
in which I was greatly privileged to take a part ? The 
session, consisting of the pastor and three elders, were 
holding meetings to examine applicants for admission to 
the Lord's table. I was present at most of these meet- 
ings. Though not understanding a word of the language 
spoken, I w r as deeply interested in each case. Some 
were rejected. I was eager to inquire the reason. In 
most cases it was because they did not clearly under- 
stand the doctrine of justification by faith or Luther's 
doctrine of the standing or falling church. Another dif- 
ficulty was that they would pray to the Virgin Mary. 



134 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Such were asked to wait until they were better in- 
structed. On the evening of the Lord's day, in a large 
room which had been used as a warehouse, the people 
met for the observance of the Lord's supper. The clerk 
of the session called the roll of membership, and each 
person answered " presente," and came and took his or 
her place before the pulpit. This was done until the 
space was filled and then the elements were passed. In 
that circle of communicants I noticed not only the well 
dressed, but men and women barefooted, men with no 
other garment but shirt and trousers. Awe and rever- 
ence marked every face, and joy lighted up every coun- 
tenance. I was deeply impressed as an elder of more 
than seventy years of age, small of stature and spare of 
form, with a face of marked intelligence and deep spirit- 
uality, received the bread and wine from the minister 
and gave them to the people. I never saw greater charm 
of manner or humility of bearing, w T ith a dignity that 
was most noble. 

TEULY A HEAVENLY SCENE 

I was touched almost to tears by the spirituality and 
heavenliness of the whole scene. Row after row of 
communicants came forward, answering to their names, 
until 115 or more had partaken of the Lord's supper. 
The room was full of spectators, the street was lined 
with eager listeners, and the inmates of the houses oppo- 
site were watching the scene with deepest interest. 
When all was over, I turned to the minister and said 
to him : " Tell me about your old elder, for I have 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 135 

fallen desperately in love with him. How did he come 
to Christ ?" The minister said that he belonged to one 
of the prominent families in that community. His 
mother had been a devoted Catholic, and on her dying 
bed turned to her son and said to him : " I am about 
to die, and I have one last and great favor to ask of 
you/' "What is it, my mother?" said this good man. 
She told him, " I want you to take my crucifix, which 
I value so highly, and burn a candle before it and pray 
for the repose of my soul." He gladly promised and 
faithfully kept his vow until his eyes were opened to 
see that Jesus Christ was the only and all-sufficient 
Saviour. Having accepted Christ as his divine Saviour 
and Master, he brought this crucifix, which was so pre- 
cious to him by reason of its being the property of his 
dead mother, and said to the minister : " I cannot longer 
do what I have promised my mother to do. I see it is 
all wrong. But I cannot destroy this crucifix for my 
dear mother's sake. I have brought it to you that you 
may destroy it and that I may simply do the will of 
Jesus." There could have been no severer test, for per- 
secution would have been a small matter to such a man 
compared with the necessity of refusing longer to obey the 
dying request of the mother whom he loved devotedly. 

TRIBUTE TO THE EVANGELISTIC COMMITTEE 

In this connection it is a pleasing duty to pay hearty 
tribute to the work of the Evangelistic Committee of 
the Assembly, of which Mr. John H. Converse is chair- 
man. The work of the Committee and of the Board 



136 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

not only lies along parallel lines, but in many places 
and particulars it overlaps. With the limited resources 
both of men and money at our command, the Board has 
been engaged in this work from the beginning. We 
have been painfully aware both of the supreme impor- 
tance of the evangelistic services and of the utter inade- 
quacy of the means at our disposal to overtake it. We 
heartily rejoice in the good work which has been done 
by the Assembly's Committee and bid them " God- 
speed." From every part of the field come encouraging 
reports of the good work done under the auspices of the 
committees of presbyteries charged with this duty. 
There are, so to speak, three great departments of such 
work. First, among the mission churches where a 
week's evangelistic services, under the leadership of 
reliable and trained ministers, would ordinarily be of 
inestimable blessing to such churches. It would increase 
membership, develop resources, and speed progress 
along every line. Second, such work needs to be done 
among the strong churches, either singly or in groups, 
and especially do such churches in the large cities need 
to be brought into direct contact with the work of saving 
souls. Third, there is the vast multitude of the un- 
churched, who only in rare instances can be prevailed 
upon to cross the threshold of a church. The gospel 
must be taken to these vast multitudes in the tent or in 
the hall, and the summer season is especially fitted for 
just such services. We shall rejoice to cooperate with 
the Assembly's committee in this work of far-reaching 
importance in every way in our power. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 137 

FAITHFUL WOEK OF THE MISSIONAEIES 

In speaking of the work in general, we must be per- 
mitted to refer to the annual report, where, setting forth 
as best we can what has been done, it is only too mani- 
fest what a brief and imperfect tale has been told. But 
the Church will not fail to honor nor forget to pray for 
the home missionary. Every missionary is worthy of 
special honor as the elect from among the elect, called 
of God and the Church to go to the front where dangers 
are greatest, burdens are heaviest, and difficulties hard- 
est to overcome. But the home missionary is worthy 
of preeminent honor. There is nothing of romance 
about his work, no farewell meetings, no cheer of 
recognition. He is the poorest paid of all the ministers 
who stand upon our Assembly's roll, not because his 
abilities or needs are less than that of any other minister 
or missionary, but for quite other reasons. One of these 
is an inheritance which has come down to us through two 
centuries. In those early days which antedate the work 
of foreign missions by 130 years, the Church in her 
poverty could not offer even a living salary. 

Yet noble men responded to the earnest appeals to 
" Go, spread the Gospel of Christ in the dark regions 
of the world, in the province of New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, and the territories of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia." They took the beggarly allowance granted 
them, and went forth cheerfully to found such churches 
as the First Presbyterian Churches of New York and 
Chicago. The habit of making inadequate support has 
been formed by the Church. But the Church might be 



138 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MIS&'TONS 

cured of this were it not for the missionaries themselves. 
Their self-denial and sacrifices are wonders of grace. 
It appears every year in some of them insisting upon 
reducing their own meager salaries so that some call for 
new work might be heeded. The work grows faster 
than the provision for it, but it grows at the cost of the 
home missionary more than it does by the gifts of the 
prosperous. Poverty is thus the everyday experience 
of the home missionary, and this is a hard world to be 
in with little or no money. There is even a heavier 
trial than that of poverty ; it is the burden of loneliness. 
How very lonely many of them are, as not only weeks 
but months come and go without their having the cheer 
of good fellowship. At the meeting of one of our 
western presbyteries the home missionary had to travel 
from his home to the place where the presbytery met a 
distance of 1044 miles, and going and returning to 
attend synod this same brother had to travel 978 miles, 
and another missionary had 994 miles to cover in going 
and returning. Why do home missionaries having a 
small salary go on such long and expensive journeys ? 
The reason is a twofold one. In their loneliness and 
homesickness they want to look into the face and hear 
the voice of a fellow-minister. They are deeply in- 
terested in knowing at first hand the conditions and 
prospects of the Lord's work. Some of them are 
heroic. When I think of Marsh and Spriggs at Point 
Barrow within the Arctic Circle, of Mr. and Mrs. Kirk 
in their lonely abode at Eagle City on the Yukon, and 
of Koonce, as he travels with his dogs a thousand miles 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 139 

to carry the gospel to the miner, I think of men who 
are making unspeakable sacrifices for Jesus Christ and 
their fellow-men. They are worthy of affectionate 
regard and of highest admiration. 

VAST TEERITORY AND IMPERATIVE NEED 

I shall not attempt a narrative of the great, though 
for the most part quiet and uneventful, work which has 
been done by missionaries in churches and mission 
stations and preaching places in the middle and further 
West. Nor shall I speak of the increasingly important 
work on the Pacific Coast, stretching from Puget Sound 
in the north to southern California. The vastness of 
this territory and the imperative need of this field, with 
its far-reaching influence on the Orient, it is impossible 
to overestimate. 

Of the work in Alaska time would fail me to speak. 
Here is an empire out of whose territory the Commis- 
sioner of Agriculture says that four States can be carved. 
Its population is growing with marked rapidity, while it is 
practically an unknown country to the mass of our people. 

The story of Cuba and Porto Rico is a thrilling tale, 
revealing at once the dire need of these islands and the 
great responsiveness of the people to the appeal of the 
missionary. Nor would the story be complete without 
the record of our work among the exceptional popula- 
tions as they are called. There is no more interesting 
work for the Master than that being done among the 
Indians. Grace has wrought wonderfully, and some of 
the noblest of Christian characters are to be found 



140 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

among the red men. We have begun work among the 
Navajoes in Arizona. The Rev. Mr. Bierkemper has 
gone to that tribe of 25,000 strong in Arizona, and from 
his zeal and devotion we are confident of good results. A 
training school has been opened at Albuquerque, under 
the charge of the Rev. H. C. Thomson, which we are con- 
fident will in time be a fountain of richest blessing to the 
Mexican and Indian peoples of that part of the country. 
But a word of good cheer must be spoken to the mis- 
sionary and the missionary teacher in Utah and the Mor- 
mon communities. There is no harder missionary field 
on earth. Mormonism is the latest and perhaps the 
greatest of Satan's devices to destroy men's souls. Under 
the guise and form of religion are presented to men the 
gratification of fleshly lusts, the greed of gain, and a 
heaven of happiness and reward after death. It is not 
only a religious and moral problem, but a political creed. 
The Mormon Church controls both political parties and 
the public press in Utah. It is working assiduously to 
obtain the balance of political pow T er in the United 
States Senate, and is making rapid progress toward it. 
The testimony of Christian people to the existence and 
spread of polygamy is disregarded by Congress, the 
press, and the people of the country, and the earnest 
appeals for a constitutional amendment fall upon deaf 
Congressional ears and are treated with scorn by the press 
of the country. But God grant a day of grace to that 
benighted people, and save the Church and the country 
from the foul and fatal contamination with their blas- 
phemous and abominable doctrines. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 141 

DUTY OF THE CHUECH 

And now, in closing, permit me to present the need of 
our country and the duty of the Church regarding it. 
This can be done in outline merely, and that only by 
way of suggestion. It may be presented under a three- 
fold division. First : Enlargement of the work. There 
are several departments, so to speak, which call for 
special and immediate attention. The large influx of 
population into Oklahoma, where 50,000 persons on a 
given day in last August took possession of the land 
upon the proclamation of the President of the United 
States. The fact that this spring 200,000 people are 
entering the Dakotas, taking up land and creating vil- 
lages and towns almost by magic ; the rapid growth of 
all sections of the State of Washington, all press upon 
the Board of Home Missions for immediate and gener- 
ous attention. Then there is the work in Cuba and 
Porto Pico. The duty is ours. The call is "Go 
work in my vineyard." Every day's delay only mul- 
tiplies and makes the work more difficult. Hitherto we 
have carried on our work in these islands by special 
contributions, without drawing upon the gifts of the 
churches for the general work of the Board ; but these 
are utterly insufficient. 

While we are more than glad to encourage individuals 
and churches to take up specially the work in these 
islands, it is extremely important that we be not limited 
to such gifts. The Church generally ought to have a 
part in this service. Then we have a large field almost 
untouched. I refer to the foreigners, especially those 



142 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

who are of alien speech and opposed to our form of gov- 
ernment; who are without religion and without God. 
Who would have been so bold as to suppose last Sep- 
tember that it would have been possible for the Presi- 
dent of the United States to have been deliberately 
murdered by the hand of one of these people ? Surely 
such a lesson was scarcely needed to arouse the Church 
to a sense of her responsibility for the welfare of the 
millions within our borders who have no gospel and 
no Sabbath and no minister of Jesus Christ. We are 
building both our commercial and political house over 
dynamite. Need we be justly surprised if some day 
there will be an explosion which will wreck everything? 
Legislation is undoubtedly needed for the protection 
of the person of the President and others in authority. 
But we know that no law, not even the divine law, 
much less human law, can make these men good or 
bring them into the fellowship of righteousness and of 
the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We are doing prac- 
tically nothing. The Church must be aroused, and 
what word can be spoken which will challenge the atten- 
tion of the people and persuade them to this supreme 
service ? There are a million Jews in the country, and 
all that your Board of Home Missions is doing for 
God's ancient people is to pay the salary of one mission- 
ary to the Jews in the city of San Francisco. The first 
great controversy in the Christian church was over this 
question, " Can God and will God save a Gentile upon 
the same terms as he is willing to save a Jew ?" The 
apostles and brethren decided that God was no respecter 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 143 

of persons, and that the Gentile as well as the Jew can 
be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. But now the 
church of the Gentile doubts the possibility of God 
saving the Jew, and is quite indifferent to whether he 
knows about the Messiah or not. A generous Presby- 
terian in Ohio has offered the Board of Home Missions 
$3000 a year for work among the foreigners. We 
gladly accept this generous gift and would welcome 
other such gifts. We find difficulty in securing com- 
petent men to preach the gospel who can speak to these 
foreigners in the tongue wherein they were born. 

EVANGELIZING THE WORLD 

The second great need of the Church is a true con- 
ception of the home missionary work to the evangeliza- 
tion of the world. The winning of 76,000,000 American 
citizens to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus 
is a duty of supreme moment and rests wholly upon 
the American Church. If the work did not extend 
beyond our own country, even then it would have first 
claim upon us, but no man liveth to himself, and America 
lives for the world. We must hold the ground already 
won. That becomes increasingly difficult year by year 
in many places throughout the country. Self-support- 
ing churches are weakened by emigration. The for- 
eigner who comes in to cultivate the soil is the friend 
neither of education nor of the Christian religion. 
Many a fair spot in our land has been reduced almost to 
spiritual barrenness by the coming of the foreigner to 
take the place of the native American. Then the re- 



144 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

emits both of men and money for foreign missionary 
work are to be expected mainly from the small and 
struggling churches. The aggregate sum given by the 
rich people of our churches for the work of missions, 
home and foreign, is a small fraction of the total sum. 
The poor out of their poverty and the plainer people of 
our country give a much greater sum. Nor do we 
think of looking to our rich city churches for the men 
or women to go as missionaries at home and abroad. 
The Church has found that these must be looked for 
from communities far removed from the rush and roar 
of city life. The progress which is to be made in 
the evangelization of the world will depend both actu- 
ally and relatively upon the success of the home mission 
work. As we multiply and strengthen the churches at 
home, these same churches in turn give of their means 
and their children to carry the gospel to the uttermost 
parts of the earth. 

We need the baptism of the spirit of missions. In 
these last days the country has received a wonderful 
baptism of generosity to philanthropic and educational 
interests. We rejoice to speak the heartiest word of 
praise of such a man as Robert C Ogden, a member of 
the Board of Home Missions, and the head of the great 
movement for the educational improvement of the 
South. And words of praise are heartily given to such 
men as Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller. But where 
is the movement, and who are the men giving of their 
vast fortunes in any proportionate degree for the salva- 
tion of America, for the conversion of the world? 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 145 

These other things we ought to do, but this greater 
thing we ought not to have left undone. We ought to 
seek in this Assembly and throughout all our churches 
in ceaseless importunity and prayer for an outpouring 
of the spirit of missions. The Presbyterian Church 
alone could readily provide both the missions and the 
missionaries for all the work that needs to be done for 
the evangelization of the world. We lack but one thing, 
and that is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Our 
devout prayer is that this centennial year may have as 
its supreme and crowning benediction the giving of the 
Holy Ghost to all the ministers and people of our Pres- 
byterian household for the work of missions. 



10 



THE SELF-SUPPORTING SYNODS 

BY THE 

KEV. EBEN B. COBB, D. D. 



Mr. Moderator y Fathers, and Brethren : — 

At the time of the reunion in 1870 our Church was 
confronted with this somewhat startling fact : that of 
our " working ministry " — by which I mean the min- 
isters in this country statedly serving our various con- 
gregations — nearly one-half were missionaries, in other 
words, were under commission from the Home Board, 
more than half of them being located in the East ; and 
of our " working ministry " not missionaries, only a 
little over one-half were pastors. It was felt that some- 
thing ought to be done. Our feeble churches, especially 
in the East, must be better supported. It would not do 
simply to prepare men for the Christian ministry and to 
care for them after they had been honorably retired; 
they must be sustained in their work as well. Over- 
tures one, two, three, and four, presented to that first 
reunited Assembly, had reference to this point. And, as 
a result, a Committee was appointed to report to the 
next Assembly. So, in 1871, under the fostering 
care of Drs. Jacobus and McCosh, who had known 
something of a similar scheme in Scotland, the so-called 

146 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 147 

" Sustentation Scheme " of our Church was launched. 
It was admirable in its purpose, wise in its theory, 
economical in its management, had many warm friends, 
and was pushed with intelligence and vigor. So that at 
the close of its first year, which was exceedingly pros- 
perous, the Assembly recorded its judgment that the 
sustentation scheme was " no longer an experiment, but 
a fixed fact, for which we would give thanks to the 
Great Head of the Church." 

But almost immediately difficulties in administration 
began to arise. The sustentation work had been sepa- 
rated at the outset from that of the Home Board to 
which it naturally belonged because it was felt that the 
Board had already all that it could well do. But, cover- 
ing a similar field and operating along similar lines, it 
was inevitable that the Sustentation Committee and the 
Home Board should occasionally clash. Hence in 1874 
the sustentation work was merged in that of the Home 
Board, which was then divided into two parts, missions 
and sustentation, with a collection to be taken for each. 
But even this did not meet the difficulty. The principle 
underlying the sustentation idea was good, but the ap- 
plication of this principle to the varying exigencies of 
the case was practically impossible. The Board did its 
best, being aided by repeated overtures sent up to suc- 
ceeding Assemblies and by the counsel of numerous 
committees which, from time to time, were appointed to 
look into the work ; but all in vain. Interest waned. 
Receipts fell off. And it is possible that in 1882 the 
whole scheme would have been abandoned had not the 



148 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

rumor gained currency that the Home Board, which was 
best acquainted with the situation, was about to make a 
suggestion which, it was hoped, might meet the necessi- 
ties of the case. 

That suggestion came the following year in these 
words : 

" The Board is of the opinion that the (sustentation) 
scheme could be made to meet all the expectations of its 
most sanguine friends if the eastern synods should see 
fit to adopt it for supplying their waning churches. 
The West is opening up so rapidly, and the demands 
made by its destitute fields on our treasury are so great, 
that it would be well for the large and wealthy Synods 
of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, 
and, perhaps, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois to under- 
take the support of their own weak churches by special 
contributions, called sustentation contributions." This 
suggestion of the Home Board was by that Assembly 
commended "to the favorable consideration of the 
older synods." 

Now I do not know who was the author of this sug- 
gestion from the Home Board. It may have been dear 
old Dr. Kendall. But I am here to affirm that it was 
one of the wisest suggestions which ever issued from 
that noble Board. Its author had no idea to what it 
would lead. The Assembly which endorsed it had not. 
But we know that it has led, under God, to the adoption 
and operation of a scheme of synodical self-support 
which is the ever-increasing admiration of those who 
know most about it and the ground of assured confi- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 149 

dence that larger and greater work will be done in days 
to come. 

Kentucky was the first to respond. That very year, 
or in the fall of 1883, it agreed to supplement by spe- 
cial gifts the amount received from the Home Board for 
work within its own bounds. And that supplemental 
work it has continued ever since with most gratifying 
results. 

But the other synods, the synods especially men- 
tioned in the suggestion of the Home Board, were not 
at once ready to act. It was seen by them very clearly 
that the sustentation idea pure and simple — that is, the 
caring for the existent but feeble churches in rural and 
other localities — -would not suffice. There were multi- 
tudes of foreigners swarming into their bounds and con- 
gregating in their great cities ; and manufacturing com- 
munities and suburban towns rapidly springing into ex- 
istence, as well as feeble churches, which must be pro- 
vided for. Indeed, the work of these older synods was 
seen to be in its need, purpose, method, and importance 
identical with that of the Home Board, while it was sur- 
rounded by difficulties peculiarly its own. Could these 
synods do this work ? And if they should make the 
attempt, how could they do it without taking from the 
prestige of the Home Board ? It was a serious problem. 
But as loyal Presbyterians, determined to love the Lord 
their God and his work with all their minds as well as 
with all their hearts, they wrestled with it. So that in 
1886 New Jersey announced that it was ready to walk 
alone. Pennsylvania and New York soon followed. 



150 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Then came Baltimore. Then Indiana, Illinois, and 
Ohio. And now, last fall, Michigan has started. And 
there are deep searchings of heart in Iowa and Nebraska 
whether they also are not ready to fall into line. 

I have no time to enlarge upon the plans of procedure 
under which these various self-supporting synods work. 
Their plans differ, as you would expect from the differ- 
ent fields in which and the different conditions under 
which they operate. They have, for the most part, been 
wrought out as the result of considerable experience. 
But they agree in at least three weighty particulars, 
which I would have you note. 

1. THEY ARE ALL LOYAL TO THE BOARD 

The first article in New Jersey's scheme, for example, 
reads : " Each church within the bounds of the Synod 
of New Jersey is enjoined to take up annually at least 
one collection for the Board of Home Missions." And 
only after this has been accepted does the second article 
read, " Each church within the bounds of the Synod of 
New Jersey shall also take up annually at least one col- 
lection for Synodical Home Missions." And though 
this loyalty to the Board is not, perhaps, so thrust to the 
front in the plans of the other self-supporting synods, it 
is in these plans none the less. I know that this was 
doubted at the first. There were some, even among the 
members of the Board, who feared lest the suggestion 
of the Board should so be construed by certain of the 
synods as to lead to the adoption of plans which would 
be injurious to the Board. Especially was this the case 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 151 

when the somewhat unique plan of Indiana was adopted. 
But time has dispelled all these fears. There is no one 
who questions now the loyalty to the Home Board of 
all these somewhat differing plans. 

Should there he one who would think of the possi- 
bility of entertaining such a suspicion, that one would 
only have to be pointed to the record of the last year 
during which, while expending about $130,000 upon 
themselves, these self-supporting synods have given to 
the Board the additional sum of nearly $4,000,000, or 
almost one-half of the gift of the entire Church, to 
have his slightest concern entirely dispelled. 

Then the plans of these self-supporting synods agree 
in that — 

2. THEY HAVE ALL ACHIEVED A CONSPICUOUS SUCCESS 

It is indeed true that only four of these synods — viz., 
New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio — have, from 
the outset, paid their own way while at the same time 
contributing to the Board as well. But there are three 
other synods which ought to be associated with these, 
in that for many years they have been paying into the 
Home Board far more than they have been taking back — 
Baltimore, which last year made a net gift to the Board 
of nearly $14,000 ; and New York and Pennsylvania, 
which each made a net gift to the Board of almost 
$120,000. So that these three synods have only to 
make a slight change, which we are confident that they 
will soon make, in the arrangement of their giving, to 
bring them fully into line. And that Iowa is wise in 



152 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

considering the question of walking alone is attested by 
the fact that that synod, one of our purely home mis- 
sion fields of a few years ago, and one in which even 
now there are more missionaries under commission from 
the Home Board than in any other synod, last year 
gave more to the Board than it received from the Board 
by the sum of $970. 

But it is not so much in the money raised as in the 
grade of work done that the success of these self-sup- 
porting synods is revealed. " We are expending twice 
as much money and doing twice as much work, besides 
doing it more satisfactorily," is the statement of Balti- 
more, with which all the other synods agree. There 
never was a time in the history of these synods when 
their older fields were better occupied, their new fields 
more promptly and efficiently entered upon, the work 
everywhere more carefully watched and guided, and 
God's blessing upon their labors more abundant and 
marked. They are pressing forward to possess their 
portion of the land for Christ, and are sure that their 
labors are not in vain in the Lord. 

Then, once more, the plans of these self-supporting 
synods agree in this, 

3. THAT THEY AEE FULL OF HOPE FOR THE FUTUEE 

Not one of these synods would for one moment enter- 
tain the thought of returning to the method of the past. 
The new, in this instance at least, they know to be better 
than the old, better in what it has done, better in what 
it will do. It has relieved the Board of many burdens 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 153 

while at the same time contributing largely to the work 
of the Board, and it has done for itself that which w^ould 
not and could not have been otherwise achieved. And 
all these self-supporting synods thank God — and in 
their thanksgiving the whole Church would do well to 
unite — that just as God through his Providence had 
opened up new fields of opportunity in Porto Rico, 
Cuba, Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, and the like, 
they, by their distinctive work, are making more stable 
and fruitful the base of supplies by which this advance 
into the regions beyond is to be achieved. And just as 
it was beginning to be questioned whether, after all, our 
synodical meetings were not somewhat unnecessary in 
our ecclesiastical organization, this work — the work of 
evangelizing their own beloved State — was brought to 
the front, through the consideration of which the meet- 
ings of synods were turned into enthusiastic missionary 
gatherings, in which the all-too-much neglected element 
of State pride was made to contribute to the advance- 
ment of the Redeemer's kingdom throughout the State 
and unto the very ends of the earth. 

The standing rule in the Synod of Pennsylvania, for 
example, is that " the first order after the organization 
of synod/' the order which shall take precedence of the 
appointment of the standing committees and of every 
other business, shall be the hearing of "the annual 
report of the Permanent Committee on Synodical Sus- 
tentation," and this standing rule, carried out in that 
synod and practically also carried out in all the other 
self-supporting synods, gives to these synods at the 



154 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

very beginning of their deliberations that evangelistic 
key-note which Mr. John H. Converse, through his able 
evangelistic committee, is giving to the meetings of our 
General Assembly, and by which these synodical meet- 
ings are becoming an increasing power for the spread of 
the gospel throughout the world. 

But before I sit down I must say a word as to why 
the home mission work of these self-supporting synods 
is so successfully carried on. Their success, under God, 
is due to three things : — 

(a) To superb organization ; (6) to economical and 
wise administration, and (c) to recognized need. 

(a) To Superb Organization. — The Synod, or State of 
New Jersey, for example, is divided into sections called 
Presbyteries. In each of these presbyteries there is a 
committee having charge of this work, the chairman of 
this committee being a member of the State committee, 
and the committee itself being so constituted as fairly 
to represent all parts of its field and all interests in- 
volved. This presbyterial committee, minutely ac- 
quainted with its portion of the State, reports to pres- 
bytery ; presbytery, through the chairman of its com- 
mittee, reports to synod's committee; synod's com- 
mittee reports to synod ; and by the synod, thus in 
possession of all the facts, the work is administered. A 
certain amount of money is asked from each presby- 
tery ; a certain amount is allotted to each presbytery, — 
the presbyteries being allowed to raise and expend the 
money assigned to them in their own way, — and thus, 
for fifteen years, the work has been administered with- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 155 

out friction and without debt, and with ever increas- 
ing efficiency and favor. And what is true of New 
Jersey is true of all the other synods, though of their 
particular form of organization I cannot now speak for 
lack of time. In organization, we are told, there is 
strength. And the work in these self-supporting synods 
is strong, and has achieved such a conspicuous success 
because it is superbly organized. 

Then the success of this work is due — 

(b) To Economical and Wise Administration. — No 
field is aided until most careful investigation has been 
made as to its needs. The amount given is, in each 
instance, the smallest amount which can wisely be 
appropriated to that field. When a field is aided it is, 
at the same time, instructed to expect an annual reduc- 
tion in the amount appropriated to it, so that, as soon as 
possible, it may come to self-support. Wherever prac- 
ticable, fields are grouped. All members of committees 
and the treasurer of the fund work without salary, busy 
pastors and equally busy laymen devoting themselves to 
this work out of love to Christ and the Church. In a 
few of the synods paid superintendents are employed 
with most gratifying results. But everywhere and 
always the endeavor is made to do the work with the 
least possible expense consistent with efficiency. And 
as a result New Jersey — and I speak of it simply 
because it is most familiar to me — has, since it began, 
raised and expended for work within its own bounds 
more than a quarter of a million of dollars at an 
expense for traveling, printing, postage, etc., of only 



156 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

about three thousand dollars. While, during the same 
period, it has given to the Home Board a million dollars 
more. Work well done and at little cost always com- 
mands respect. And the work in these self-supporting 
synods is commanding the enthusiastic approval of all 
who are familiar with it because it is so economically 
and wisely administered. 

Then, once more, the success of this work is due — 
(c) To Recognized Need. — Why, fathers and brethren, 
do you realize that nearly all of the large cities of our 
country, with all their pressing and perplexing prob- 
lems, are located within the bounds of these self-sup- 
porting synods — New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Pittsburg, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, 
Detroit, and Chicago? Do you realize that just across 
the Hudson, in the northeastern corner of New Jersey, 
and not much more than a dozen miles back from the 
river, are more than a million people, among them some 
of the worst of the foreign element found in our land, 
from whom, a short time since, one went forth to 
assassinate the King of Italy, and among whom, last 
summer, a meeting was held to commemorate the anni- 
versary of that assassination, which meeting contributed 
not a little, we believe, to the inflaming of Czolgosz for 
his awful deed? Do you realize that the Synod of 
Pennsylvania, which includes also the State of West 
Virginia, has, within its bounds, a mission field in its 
needs and opportunities second to none in our land ? 
Do you realize — , but I forbear. 

Fathers and brethren : When, going back into the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 157 

country to the rural church in which many of our best 
citizens were brought up and from which much of their 
moral greatness was derived, I find these churches 
depleted in membership, shorn of their financial strength, 
and having a desperate struggle even to live, I say, 
" these rural churches must be kept up that they may 
continue to be as springs in the mountains to purify 
and strengthen the life of our city churches." Or 
when, going out from our great cities, I see, along the 
line of every railroad, suburban towns rapidly spring- 
ing into existence where a little help now will insure 
self-support in the very near future, I say, " these 
churches must be helped." Or when, standing toward 
the close of the day, as I have often done, by the gate 
of some newly erected manufacturing establishment, I 
watch the mechanics pour out on their way to their rude 
and not altogether comfortable homes, I say, " the 
spiritual destitution of these men of toil must be met, 
even though it may be a long time before any work 
among them can attain to self-support." Or when I 
think of the teeming multitudes in New York and 
Chicago, for example, " without God and without hope 
in the world," I say, " whatever else is neglected, these 
must not be." And yet these are but a few of the items 
which make up the need which the self-supporting 
synods of our Church are striving to meet. And 
because the need of the work which they are trying to 
do is increasingly being recognized, therefore is its im- 
portance and value being increasingly appreciated. 
This then, in briefest outline, is the work of the self- 



158 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

supporting synods of our beloved Church. What is it? 
Only a branch of home mission activity, the sustenta- 
tion idea of the reunion made practical and put into 
successful operation, an earnest attempt to qualify our 
home churches to press forward with greater vigor and 
efficiency into the regions beyond. 



MISSIONAKIES' ADDRESSES 



HOME MISSIONS IN TEXAS 

BY THE 

KEV. HENEY S. LITTLE, D. D. 
Denison, Texas 



Texas Home Missions are conspicuous for three re- 
sults : There are 64 counties in Texas that are entirely 
prohibition. Of the remaining 251 counties 102 are 
partially prohibition, and in 37 of these it prevails in 
more than half the territory. This is measurably the 
result of home missionary effort. In two of these 
counties it was almost wholly due to a canvass by home 
missionaries, and elsewhere home missionary influence 
was eminent. 

Home missions in small places, places that come to 
self-support slowly, should be noticed. These are poor 
because they feed the larger churches. In one section 
of Texas several small places have sent numbers to the 
neighboring cities. They were just the men to bring 
the small churches to self-support. Had they remained 
where they were, the churches so long on the Board 
would have reached independence. These churches 
ought to be helped. They are essential factors in the 
work as a whole. The best material of the larger 
churches would be otherwise lacking. 

159 



160 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

One of the commissioners at this Assembly is pastor 
of one of the finest churches in Texas. It was organ- 
ized a few years ago with eighteen members. Last year 
it built a house of worship costing $10,000, and it has 
built and paid for a school costing $25,000. 

Home missions carry the gospel where it would 
otherwise not go. There are many, many places that 
cannot support the gospel themselves which represent 
the most valuable people. El Paso, in Texas, has a 
larger addition to its membership than any other church, 
and yet there w T ere years when that church could not 
stand alone. Not to have held it then would have lost 
it. It takes but a few years of El Paso growth and 
giving to compensate the Board for all that has been 
done for her. 

Mr. Bloys, of Fort Davis, is the most successful home 
missionary that I know. He often rides 40 miles to a 
service, a funeral, or a wedding. On fifth Sundays he 
rides 70 miles to an appointment. His parish is 500 
miles long and 165 miles broad. It may be years 
before his church can come to self-support, but the 
Grand Jury sat in his cattle-men's country for three 
successive years without finding a single case of any 
description. Men say that this is largely due to a camp- 
meeting that he holds once a year. Men hear him, may 
join his church, and then move away. He is home 
missions pure and simple. Men are scattered far and 
near. They ought to have the gospel. 



THE YUKON VALLEY 

BY THE 

EEV. M. EGBEET KOONCE, Ph.D., 
Kampart, Alaska 



I have come too far to waste any words this morning 
in trying to lay before you the beauties of the country 
which I represent. I want to get right down to the gist 
of the matter. We were entertained yesterday by an 
account of the march of the Presbyterian Church across 
the continent. 

We have two presbyteries in Alaska — an extent of 
territory equal to twenty of your western States and a 
dozen, perhaps, of your best synods. Into that little 
country three years ago the Home Board, at the direc- 
tion of the Church, sent three missionary preachers to 
preach the gospel to a population which was scattered 
from one end of it to the other. We went in there full 
of faith, believing that it could be done, and we have 
covered that country to the best of our ability. Three 
or four stations have been established. Of the three 
all are vacant now save just one. I expect to go 
back in a few weeks, and then there will be two, if 
the Church does not send more men. What are you 

11 161 



162 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

going to do, brethren, for that country? It is not a 
place where polar bears roam round and where shadows 
of animals are frozen to the ground. It is a beautiful 
country. You can gather flowers there more beautiful 
than any I have ever looked upon here ; and in certain 
seasons the climate is unequalled in any other part of 
our country, and you will find mosquitoes in more varie- 
ties than you ever dreamed of. It is a land of great 
promise, both for mining and agricultural purposes, and 
we expect, in time, to see two or three agricultural States 
carved out. 

This is the opportunity of the Church. Fifty years 
ago it was thought foolish to send missionaries west of 
the Mississippi River. You have heard to-day some- 
thing of the results that have been accomplished. There 
is now no frontier. The only frontier left is Alaska. 
There is to be a population in the next fifty years — 
and I know whereof I speak — that will surprise the 
people even as the population west of the Mississippi 
surprised you during the last fifty. 

What are you going to do? Are you going to be 
satisfied with three men? Or are you going to send 
more men to take the land for Christ ? Is it too much 
to ask you to send us another man? Dr. Young is 
going to ask the Church to send a man for a place for 
which the funds have already been provided. 



NORTHERN ALASKA'S NEED 

BY THE 

KEV. S. HALL YOUNG, D. D. 
General Missionary to Alaska. 



I AM not after money, I am after you. I am after 
some men for Alaska — here and now ; and that is the 
kind of men we want (pointing to Dr. Koonce). A 
walk of 1200 miles across mountains and rivers with the 
thermometer 62 degrees below zero is a very little thing 
for Dr. Koonce. He does not mind it. It gives him 
an appetite. 

I asked for a man last year at the General Assembly. 
Mr. John H. Converse, of Philadelphia, put into the 
hands of the Board the support of a man for Teller. 
We have not found that man yet. Many times we 
thought we had found him, and only last year a young 
man, admirably adapted for that work as it seemed to us 
and recommended by many, found, on consulting with 
his mother, that he could not go. 

Teller is a new mining camp on Behring Sea, in the 
midst of a mining region, and has six camps near it. 
When we failed to get that man last summer we put 
that church in charge of a good Presbyterian elder 

163 



164 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

from Iowa and he is holding the fort. Will you go ? 
Will you go ? You may be afraid of the hardships. 
Well ? Dr. Jackson , Dr. Koonce, and I have travelled 
somewhat extensively over Alaska the last few years, 
and speaking for them as well as for myself, I have to 
say w^e have yet to find the hardships. They don't exist 
for us. A man must go within a few weeks if he would 
be in time before the rivers close. 

Last Sunday, at the First Presbyterian Church, after 
my address, three ladies came with $300 to put into that 
work for a man in the interior, in the land where Dr. 
Koonce and Mr. Kirk are laboring. A classmate of our 
Moderator and of Dr. Duffield, and one of the brightest 
men of that very bright class of 1877 at Princeton, an 
old college friend of mine, offered himself for the work. 
The only thing that makes me hesitate in nominating 
him with all my heart for the position is that I love him 
too well. I hesitate about killing him, and yet it is a 
glorious thing to die in Alaska, and it might be the life 
of him and the health of him as it has been to some 
others. This morning our honored Moderator, Henry 
van Dyke, put into my hands this check for $500, as he 
said, " as a token of love, to be used in the work of 
Alaska." We will get the money if you will give the 
men. Will you do it ? My brethren, comfortably sit- 
uated in your pleasant pastorates, will you not hear the 
call? If you are adaptable men and able to build 
your own church with your own hand ; able to live the 
life of the miner ; able to " mush " over the territory, 
and, as some one has said, do everything that the miners 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 165 

do except drink whiskey and play poker, and do all the 
necessary things better than the miner does, and preach 
the gospel free from the lust of gold, you are the men 
we want. I ask this Assembly to give us two or three 
men so that I can come in the name of our Board of 
Home Missions and ask for the rest of the money — 
and get it, too. 



THE MORMON PROBLEM 

BY THE 

KEV. SHELDON JACKSON, D.D. 
Washington, D. C. 



In this day of congratulation and celebration it is a 
good time for the Church to look forward and gird up 
her loins for a twentieth century eifort to capture the 
United States. There are three great religious systems 
that have set themselves to accomplish this — the Mor- 
mon system, the Papal system, and the Protestant sys- 
tem. If the Protestant system prevails, our free insti- 
tutions will be perpetuated ; if the Papal system pre- 
vails, we will have liberty, but under Tammany influ- 
ences and with a Tammany flavor at Washington ; if 
the Mormon system prevails, the " president, prophet, 
and revelator " of the church of the Latter Day Saints 
will be in the White House at Washington ; Congress 
will be disbanded, and the twelve apostles of the Mor- 
mon Church will dictate the laws and govern the land. 

I know that you are surprised that I class the Mor- 
mon system as an influential factor in our country 

166 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 167 

with the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant 
churches, but to-day the Mormons gather more converts 
in the United States than either the Roman Catholics 
or the Presbyterians. The Presbyterian Church sends 
22 ministers to the Mormons while the Mormon Church 
sends 2000 missionaries through the United States. 
They have churches and congregations in every State 
and Territory of this Union to-day except Alaska. 
They have divided up the States into districts, placed a 
missionary bishop in charge of each district, and are 
carrying forward with their missionaries a systematic 
house-to-house canvass for converts. And, as already 
intimated, they are succeeding, and if left alone may yet 
overthrow the liberties of this country. I know that 
you think this a wild statement, but go back seventy- 
five years in western New York and see that tramp out- 
fit in camp by a brook. The dilapidated country wagon 
with its tattered canvas-covered top, the broken-down 
team grazing near by, the poorly-clad women of the party 
going to a neighboring farm house for milk and food, 
testify to the poverty and low-down condition of the 
family. 

Looking upon that scene, had some one remarked to 
you, "See that tramp family. In seventy-five years 
they will have a following of nearly half a million 
American citizens. In seventy-five years they will con- 
trol a sovereign State of the Union and hold the balance 
of political power in several other States. In seventy- 
five years they will control the election of Senators and 
Representatives to the National Congress from their 



168 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

own State and be consulted with regard to others;" 
you would have said, "Impossible; it can't be done!" 
It is an actual fact to-day. 

Dr. Holmes, in his inspiring address this morning, 
tells us that the great danger of the American Republic 
is commercialism. The Mormon Church to-day con- 
trols " the commercialism." There is not a syndicate in 
New York or New Jersey that is willing to antagonize 
the Mormon Church. 

Ask Mrs. Darwin R. James, and she will tell you 
that thousands upon thousands of the best citizens of 
the land have petitioned Congress for an amendment 
prohibiting polygamy. But what does that amount 
to ? There is not a Congressman in Washington who 
would interfere. They don't care to offend the Mormon 
Church. There is not a Congressman, either Repub- 
lican or Democratic, courageous enough to take the 
leadership in pushing that amendment. It can't be 
done. It can't, unless the Church of Christ wakes up. 

Dr. Holmes tells us that the second great danger is for- 
eign population. The Mormons are getting a strong hold 
among the foreigners. They are everywhere. They are 
taking not only foreigners, but Americans. They are 
going into Presbyterian and other churches and taking 
out the communicants. There is not a year that passes 
in which people born and brought up and baptized and 
received at the communion table of the Presbyterian 
and other churches are not giving up the faith of their 
fathers and going into the Mormon Church. Thousands 
of American citizens are joining the Mormon Church. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 169 

And that church confidently looks forward to the day 
when they shall be in full control of the United States, 
for they believe that they have had a revelation from 
God that they are to take possession of this land ; they 
believe that they have been promised by their God 
that the president of the Mormon Church shall be the 
President of the United States, and that this country, 
from ocean to ocean and from Alaska to the Gulf, shall 
be given to the saints of God in the Mormon Church. 
Is there no hope ; no relief? Yes ! God has placed 
relief in our hands. Send the gospel and Christian 
schools into Utah and you can disintegrate Mormonism. 
Let the Church wake up and supply the Board of Home 
Missions with the necessary funds for increasing mission 
work in Utah many fold. The gospel of the Lord 
Jesus Christ is the only solvent that will disintegrate 
the Mormon system and save this land to the American 
people. The gospel is the only solvent that will save 
your homes in their purity to your children and to your 
children's children. 



Tuesday Afternoon, May 20, 1902 

FELLOWSHIP MEETING 



GREETINGS FEOM SISTER BOARDS 



FROM BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 

BY THE 

KEY. JOHN D. WELLS, D. D. 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 

(Paper presented by the Eev. David Gregg, D. D., in Dr. Wells' 
absence.) 

Mr. Moderator, Fathers, and Brethren : — 

Ten minutes only are allowed me for an important 
and pleasant service. As freedom of speech with an 
inviting theme is a dangerous commodity, I therefore 
shield you and myself with these bits of paper. 

If I were performing a marriage ceremony here and 
now, I am very sure that the parties most nearly con- 
cerned would not be pleased if I made the ceremony an 
address to this large audience. I am equally sure that 
the Board of Home Missions with its officers, to whom 
the Board of Foreign Missions and its officers have 
charged me to speak a few words on this centennial 
occasion, will expect me to address them and not all 
within the sound of my voice, though all, I trust, may 
be able to hear. 

The two Boards are very near neighbors. In our 
meetings from month to month we occupy parts of the 
same building belonging to the Church we serve. There 

173 



174 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

the secretaries and treasurers and good women cooper- 
ating with the Boards have their permanent and com- 
modious quarters. We have many interests in common. 
We serve the same divine Master. We are under the 
same great commission left us by our risen Lord. It 
is our call to service till he come. We are responsible 
to the Church that appoints us, and to this Church we 
report yearly. Therefore may I not say, in the name 
of the Lord, " The Board of Foreign Missions and its 
officers affectionately greet the Board of Home Missions 
and its officers on this their hundredth anniversary?" 

Younger as an organized body than you, we share 
with you your joy of one hundred years ; and we join 
the churches of Christendom in extending to you our 
hearty greeting. We are glad that as you begin your sec- 
ond century of service you carry no debt. We congrat- 
ulate you, brethren, because you have lived so long, and, 
by the grace of God, have lived so well. For though 
the personnel of the Board has changed, the organized 
body has retained its life, its name, its character, and its 
high calling. We have in mind and heart the names 
of men who have wrought well and now rest from their 
labors. The Board of Foreign Missions in its shorter 
life has had a like experience. You and we feel the 
influence of those who have gone before, who have 
served our Boards as officers and as missionaries and as 
martyrs ; for some have sealed their testimony with their 
blood. May we all be followers of them who through 
faith and patience inherit the promises ! 

We congratulate you because through the successive 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 175 

decades of the century the Church you serve, with the 
Christian Church at large, has been growing to her 
present proportions, and that you have helped her 
growth. We hope she is coming to a deeper and more 
sacred consciousness of responsibility for the evangeliza- 
tion of the peoples of the home land and of all lands. 
I say " peoples " because representatives have come 
hither from almost every land under heaven. Among 
those for whom you care you can more than match the 
Pentecostal enumeration, beginning with the " Parthians 
and Medes " and ending with the " Cretes and Ara- 
bians " — sixteen in all. You go beyond the teens. 
Under the one commission you and the representatives 
of sister denominations are bound to reach the ever- 
increasing but ever-dying multitudes as soon as possible. 

In his Imago Christi, Dr. Stalker has these soul- 
stirring words : 

" All who take part in this work ought to build with 
his (Christ's) holy ardor. He thought it worth while 
to die for the sake of redeeming the souls of men ; what 
sacrifice are we prepared to make in contributing to the 
same end ? He gave his life : will we give up our 
ease, our effort, our money ? It was because he 
believed each single soul was more precious than a 
world that he died to save the souls of men. Are 
they precious in our eyes ? Does their fate haunt us ? 
Does their sin grieve us ? Would their salvation fill us 
with aught of the joy that thrills the angels in heaven 
when one sinner is converted ? " 

We congratulate you because you have had and now 



176 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

have the privilege of nurturing the lives of so many- 
churches in the older and the newer States and Territo- 
ries of this great Republic. But for your living agents 
and sacred agencies, whole States and Territories would 
have no Presbyterian churches, schools, academies, or 
colleges. In this great work you have cooperated with 
other Boards of the Church, and in some instances you 
have established the gospel among people for whom no 
others have cared. 

We congratulate you because, as fully as possible with 
the means at your command, you have kept pace with 
the phenomenal extension of our national territory and 
the growth of the nation itself. You have made it 
comparatively safe for people of enterprise to seek 
homes for themselves in advance of the sure protection 
of civil government ; and at last you have the joy, 
with all loyal American citizens, of seeing our nation a 
power and a benediction among the great nations of the 
world, and the richest of them all. To this result you 
have ministered, unwittingly perhaps, while seeking one 
still higher, according to the mind of God. 

We congratulate you because you are doing a blessed 
work among the remnants of the Indian tribes of our 
land, having accepted this work largely from the For- 
eign Board, and hastening the day, we may hope, when 
they all will prize full citizenship, the possession and 
cultivation of farms in severalty, and what is still more 
important, the sharing with all Christian people in " the 
durable riches of righteousness " and " the kingdom 
of the heavens." 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 111 

We congratulate you' because of the character and 
gracious efficiency of your missionaries. I may not 
mention names. I barely refer to some communities in 
out-of-the-way places, especially in mountain regions 
difficult of access, where human deterioration had 
reached its lowest depths, but where now transforma- 
tions of character and destiny are the glory of the land 
and the joy of heaven. If we could even glance at 
your work in Alaska, Porto Eico, and Cuba — Cuba, 
whose name this very day, under American leadership, 
is for the first time written in the annals of history as 
a nation and a republic and a free people — we might 
possibly make our congratulations more emphatic, if we 
cannot make them more sincere. 

You are to be strongly congratulated, as we of the 
Board of Foreign Missions and the whole Church are, 
because of the wise and earnest and gracious coopera- 
tion of our Christian women in the practical, admin- 
istrative, and editorial work of missions. "What should 
or could we now do without them ? How did the 
Church and her Boards accomplish their parts of evan- 
gelistic work among the peoples of the world before 
they were organized for efficient service ? Not less than 
in our homes and separate churches, they are a lovely 
necessity in all mission work at home and abroad. 

As I am called to speak for the Board of Foreign 
Missions, all of whose members and officers I know, it 
is my regret that I do not know all the members of the 
Board of Home Missions, though I have the pleasure of 
knowing its officers. May I not say at least, from in- 
12 



178 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

formation and partial knowledge, that you are the worthy- 
successors of those who have gone before? You have 
entered into their labors. You have come to the king- 
dom for such a day as this. We are glad to be under 
the same roof with you. We cannot forget that with 
you we have our Lord's promise in its broadest and 
most specific terms : " Ye shall receive power, after that 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be wit- 
nesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 
It was an apostolic promise at first, but it is a promise 
now for the churches of all times and all lands. 

A word about the future. In some respects it will be 
as the past. The personnel of the Boards and of their 
officers will change. But why regret this ? The Lord 
of life who loves us will order the changes. He will 
so order them that the work will go on until he come. 
These changes will hasten his appearing. Brethren, 
the work will grow upon your hands. We hope that this 
centennial celebration may help it financially ; and if 
financially, then also in its scope and power. We 
hopefully look forward to the winning of more souls, 
the multiplying of Christian institutions, the exalting 
of our nation by righteousness, and the bringing of 
more glory to the God of our salvation. 

The report of this centennial observance will be car- 
ried by members of the Assembly to the presbyteries 
of the Church. It will reach all pastors and stated sup- 
plies and churches without pastors. May we not hope 
that more of our ministers will sound the tidings of your 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 179 

age, your vigor, and your work for Christ and souls and 
country from their pulpits? Your periodicals and leaf- 
lets will publish the good news. You stand on the 
threshold of the new century with glad hearts, eager to 
finish the work given you to do. Never forget that this 
is the pentecostal era. Seek and expect and receive 
the divine benediction. 

May you and we, with all the members of mission- 
ary boards and societies, and all Christian people, " be 
filled with the Spirit " for efficient service, and so hasten 
the coming of the Lord and the kingdom of glory ! 
Amen ! 



FEOM THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 

BY THE 

KEY. GEO. D. BAKEE, D. D. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 



Fathers and Brethren: — 

" Miseky," so runs the proverb, " loves company ." 
But misery is not the only thing that loves company. 
Joy loves company. When the woman found the piece 
of silver which she had lost she called her friends and 
neighbors together to rejoice with her. That is what 
the Home Board has done to-day, — called her neighbors 
and her friends to rejoice with her, and they are here to 
do it with all their hearts ; and I take it that there is no 
one of them nearer, and, I trust, dearer to the Board 
of Home Missions than the Board of Education. The 
Board of Home Missions early felt its need of the Board 
of Education, and a friend in need is always a friend 
indeed. The Board of Home Missions wanted men ; 
they found it hard to get them ; and they said, " We 
must have an educating board to furnish us men." 
They could have got men of a certain stamp, but 
they could not get the men they wanted and the men 
that they imperatively required. For anyone who 

180 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 181 

knows anything about the home mission work knows 
that it is of no use to send to the front those who are 
not in every sense of the word men, — men of God and 
thoroughly furnished to do the work of God. This is 
the function and the glory of the Board of Education to 
give to the Church well furnished, thoroughly edu- 
cated men. These are the only men to send to the front. 
The well organized and rich and quietly going churches 
of the East can sometimes carry a dull man, carry him 
for some time ; those churches out there on the frontier 
can't and won't. They must have strong men and they 
must have men who are thoroughly educated to meet 
the peculiar conditions under which, in the providence 
of God, they are placed. Brethren, this is a good op- 
portunity for me to say that there are certain persons 
who know very little, who are exceedingly ignorant 
of the facts in the case (God pity their ignorance !), who 
have some way or other got it into their heads that the 
furnishing of help, of pecuniary help, to a man while 
he is preparing for the ministry takes out his manhood ; 
that he cannot go into the ministry quite the man he 
would be if he had stubbornly refused to take one cent 
of the church's money. I have often wished that if it 
were right the names might be published, — the names 
of those ministers in the Presbyterian Church who have 
received aid, and the names of those who have not. I 
will not say whether I received aid or not, but I would 
rather be in the list of those who have. Some of these 
men I have seen and known personally. It was my 
privilege for ten years to be chairman of the Synod's 



182 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Committee of Home Missions in Michigan. I used to 
go among these men. I used to go into their homes. I 
used to see them at their work, and I had then awakened 
in me an admiration for them, a respect for them, and an 
estimate of them, which I have carried all through my 
life, and which has always made me feel that they are 
the men whom the Church ought to honor above all 
others. 

We are here to-day to congratulate the Board of Home 
Missions. Well, its history for one hundred years is 
the best congratulation. That tells the story. What a 
glorious record it is ! It has entered into the life of the 
nation. It has molded the people. We are so different 
from what we would have been had it not been for what 
home missions have done for us. We recognize the 
perils which confront us at the present time. Dear Dr. 
Cyrus Dixon (how well I remember his sayings on the 
platform of the General Assembly) said in his own 
inimitable way, " The nations of the earth have lifted 
up their feet and are come hither." How true it was ; 
and they are lifting them up still. Oh, this ceaseless 
tramp, tramp, tramp, as the peoples of all the world 
come up upon our shores ! Can we stand it ? Can we 
endure the strain ? Can we assimilate them ? These are 
the questions that often worry us, trouble us, bring us 
to our knees before God. Yes, brethren, given another 
hundred years of home missions like the hundred years 
that are gone, and all will be well. That is the hope, — as 
has been said more than once here this afternoon, — 
that is the hope of the nation. Well may the President 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 183 

of these United States, the head and representative of 
the nation, come here to-night, perhaps at much incon- 
venience, to speak his word in praise and recognition of 
home missions. He, and men like him, discerning men, 
men wise to know the times, realize that this is the hope 
of the nation, and that it is the only hope of the nation. 
Oh, if rich Christians, all rich Christians, realized it to 
the full ! Brethren, you know that in these days money 
is being poured out like water for secular education, for 
the endowment of non-religious universities and colleges, 
and the establishment of non-religious libraries. There 
is a peril facing us, not the peril of ignorance, but the 
peril of Godless education. The institutions and the 
men and women who, with all their education, spell 
God with a small g. The salvation of the country is 
not in education, it is in Christian education, in the very 
education that this Board of Home Missions is giving 
the country to-day, and has been giving the country for 
one hundred years, in the pulpit and in the school. Oh, 
that there might be a revival of giving in the direction 
of supporting missions, home missions ! Foreign mis- 
sions will take care of themselves if home missions are 
supported to the extent and in the way they ought to be. 
God bless the Board of Home Missions. The Board 
of Education is glad to give you men, glad to give you 
the best men we have. We wish we had more to give 
you. We wish you had the money to take more. God 
bless the Board of Home Missions. God bless the Secre- 
taries, those of to-day. Ah, what secretaries the Board 
has had in all its history ! Henry Kendall ! What a 



184 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

giant ! What a general ! He made an epoch in the 
Church of God in home missions. Let us thank God 
for these men, let us thank him for those men upon the 
Board of Directors who give their time and their brains 
without a cent of compensation in the service of God 
and the Church and the country. God bless the mis- 
sionaries and their wives. He only knows how much 
their wives have to do with their success under the con- 
ditions in which they are placed. And God be thanked 
for the Church which stands behind the Board of Home 
Missions and gives it the sinews of war, — money. And 
last, but not least, let us thank him to-day for the prayer 
of faith in the nation's God, which is ever going up from 
our churches and our homes. 



FROM THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION AND 
SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 

BY THE 

HON. BOBEKT N. WILLSON 
Philadelphia, Pa. 



Mr. Moderator: — 

The Board of Publication and Sabbath-school Work, 
which I have the honor of representing on this memo- 
rable occasion, sends its most cordial greetings to its 
older sister in the work of evangelization — the Board 
of Home Missions. 

The hundred years which have passed since our 
Church organized this agency have been full of won- 
drous events. The map of the world has been changed 
again and again. Inventions have added to the com- 
forts of life, have made transportation and commerce 
easy, have changed days into minutes by the power of 
steam and electricity, and have put within the reach of 
Christian effort populations which were once so remote 
or inaccessible as hardly to be within any plans of 
work. Meanwhile our own country has passed from a 
state of youth and a comparatively untried experiment 
of government to a state of immense prosperity, of 
enormous dimensions, and of a confidence in its own 

185 



186 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

strength which challenges dispute. The Christian 
Church, the Presbyterian Church, has not during this 
century of material progress been indifferent to the op- 
portunities which Providence has opened. Though it 
cannot, alas ! be truthfully said that the duties resting 
upon Christian people to provide the gospel and suit- 
able religious privileges for the population which has 
during all these years been pushing its way through the 
forests, over the prairies, and across rivers and moun- 
tains toward the setting sun, have been fulfilled, yet 
much, very much, has been done to that end. The 
home missionary has pressed hard upon the rear of the 
advancing host of the eager, earnest, but oft-times reck- 
less and godless pioneers, who have sought gold, or har- 
vests, or homes in the West, until further advance has 
been halted by the waters of the broad Pacific. 

The story of what such missionaries have done ; of 
what privations they have suffered ; of what Christian 
courage and faith they have exhibited ; of what they 
have contributed toward the morality, manliness, 
patriotism, and religious life of vast sections of our 
country now densely populated — that story has, per- 
haps, never been adequately told. The frontier life has 
had peculiar features and perils which those of us who 
have spent our years in the East have never fully com- 
prehended. What these would have brought of calamity 
and evil, had not the home missionary been at hand to 
recall early home training and associations and to speak 
the gospel message to the pioneers on the outposts of 
civilization, it would be difficult to describe. God only 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 187 

knows. Happily, there are abundant testimonials all 
over the territory which was once home mission ground, 
in prosperous churches, orderly communities, and warm 
Christian hearts and earnest lives, that the gospel was 
faithfully preached by the pioneer missionary, and that 
his influence was a potent factor in the development 
of the best thought and life. In all this work the 
Home Mission Committees and Board of our Presby- 
terian Church have been conspicuous for their wisdom, 
energy, perseverance, and success. For their abundant 
labors, so signally blessed by the great Head of the 
Church, and for the consecrated lives and great useful- 
ness of the many thousands of missionaries who have 
modestly, and frequently in destitution, for Christ's 
sake, spent their years in trying to reach and save their 
frontier brothers, it is eminently fitting that the great 
Presbyterian Church should this day, through its repre- 
sentatives, express its profound gratitude to almighty 
God for the guidance and success which he has given 
to this work. 

In this thanksgiving the Board which I represent 
can with peculiar appropriateness take part, for our 
work, in reaching homes and organizing Sunday schools, 
frequently precedes that of the home missionary. 
During the past fourteen years over 600 Presbyterian 
Churches have grown out of these Sunday schools and 
been taken in a very large proportion under the care of 
the Home Mission Board. We take pleasure in testify- 
ing not only to the fraternal relations which have always 
existed between these two agencies of our Church, but 



188 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

also to the high degree of fidelity, and wisdom with 
which the affairs of home missions have been conducted. 

So much for the past. What shall be said of the 
present and future of the home mission work ? It seems 
to me that no proper conclusion can be reached upon 
that point without a full recognition of the part which 
Providence seems to have assigned to our nation in the 
great drama of history. There is a natural disposition, 
no doubt, out of mere sentiment, to exalt one's estimate 
of his own country and of its relative importance. 
Stripping ourselves, however, of any such emotion, is it 
not just to say, with cool and good reason, that the 
United States of America not only occupies an altogether 
unique position in the family of nations, but that it pos- 
sesses characteristics and powers which must give to it 
strong influence in determining the policies and move- 
ments which yet lie sleeping in the womb of the future ? 

If I mistake not, many, perhaps most, of the present 
difficult problems of the world, — social, moral, and relig- 
ious, — are to be worked to a solution in our midst. Here 
are the greatest industries. Here is the granary of the 
world, hardly yet encroached upon sufficiently to be felt. 
Here is a domain waiting for a population large enough 
to be called scattering. Here are natural and artificial 
means of travel and transportation which tie together 
two oceans in close contact. Here there are the spirit 
and faculty of discovery and invention, which readily 
meet a material want with an appropriate remedy. 

Here is accumulating, also, either for weal or woe — 
who knows? — that vast aggregation of wealth, which 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 189 

may soon bring, if it has not already brought, the center 
of financial strength from the Old World to the New. 

But still another fact exists, which differentiates this 
nation from every other on the face of the globe. Amer- 
ica — preeminently, the United States of America — is 
the gathering place of the peoples of the world. In no 
other land than ours will the future see what history has 
never exhibited to a like degree, viz., a composite race, 
assimilated from a mixture of Anglo-Saxon, Celt, Scan- 
dinavian, Russian, and many other sources. The time 
will come, not many generations hence, unless all present 
signs shall fail, when it will not be possible to speak of 
our people as Anglo-Saxons. We — or, rather, they who 
shall then live — will be of a mixed race, into which will 
have entered characteristics derived from various con- 
stituent elements. What will the race be ? What will it 
be good for? Will it work in the line of God's plan 
for the redemption of the world, or will it be sordid, 
irreverent, and impious ? 

I believe that the new race, compacted out of the ele- 
ments now in process of fusion, will be virile, earnest, 
and aggressive. But if its powers are to be used for 
good and progress, the energy of the gospel and the 
sweet influence of Christ's love and life must infuse the 
mass, and leaven it into a healthful and fruitful life. 

Into this heterogeneous mass of various racial ele- 
ments now existing and rapidly accumulating in our 
land, largely in its newer and outlying portions, the 
home missionary should go with the message of love 
and salvation, and the example of a Christian life and 



190 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

upright conduct. Unsanctified, not controlled by Chris- 
tian principles, the strange, unregulated people of for- 
eign lands, many of whom have learned by lessons of 
oppression and wrong to hate governments and to 
despise laws, will prove to be a menace to religion and 
civil order. Every patriot owes it to his country, if he 
has no higher motive, and every Christian owes it to his 
God and Saviour, to do what he can by sustaining mis- 
sionary work in our own land, to save it from infidelity, 
anarchy, and vice. 

The future can be saved — I believe it will be saved — 
from the wreck and ruin which will come from a failure 
to send the gospel to our own people and to those who 
come here for refuge and for homes. 

No cause should appeal to us, Christians and Presby- 
terians, more strongly than the home mission work. All 
the agencies of our Church should work together like 
the fingers of a man's hand. But let us not fail to re- 
member that the capacity for work in any direction will, 
in the long run, depend upon the vigor and vitality of 
the home work and the home church. 

There is yet much to be done in this fair, broad land 
of ours for its elevation and Christianization. The 
strange people of the mountains in some of the older 
States appeal for help in the plaintive tones which come 
from those who feel that they have lost a treasure which 
once belonged to their ancestors. 

The remnants of the Indian aborigines, with their 
imperfectly recognized claim upon the American people ; 
the Alaskans, rude and degraded, who yet manifest an 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 191 

appetite for better things and a real capacity for educa- 
tion and improved conditions ; the foreign born at the 
mines or on the farms ; the native born, who yet dwell 
in undeveloped parts of our country, where neither 
numbers nor possessions have furnished opportunities 
of religious instruction and worship ; that peculiar peo- 
ple to be found in large parts of our western territory, 
who mingle a sort of Oriental mysticism, passion, and 
ignorance with a remarkable energy and ambition for 
power — all these form a basis for an appeal to American 
Christians, and especially to those of our own Church, 
to double our efforts, to rally around the banner which 
Christ has set for us and enriched with the color of his 
own blood, and to pledge ourselves to an earnest, per- 
sistent, prayerful effort to make the new century of 
home mission work so rich, full, and successful that, 
before the cycle shall have run its course, our country 
shall stand forth among the nations of the world, not 
only Christian in name, but Christian in fact, influence, 
and life. 

God grant that our own beloved Church may be a 
broad channel through which the divine blessing may 
flow upon our country and the world ! 



FEOM THE BOAED OF MINISTERIAL 
EELIEF 

BY THE 

HON. KOBEKT H. SMITH 

Baltimore, Md. 



Mr. Moderator: 

I think I have caught the spirit of this gathering. 
I rather incline to think that the short speaker is 
the popular speaker to-day. I am after popularity. 
I think, although many of you have bald heads and 
more of you have gray heads, you are only children 
grown up. A few years ago I was addressing some 
children one evening in Baltimore, and it grew quite 
late before I was called upon to speak, about the 
time the children are usually going to bed. I knew I 
had a problem before me to keep those children awake, 
and there was a clock on the wall, as there is facing 
me now (and I am going to watch it, too), and I said 
to those children, " I am going to stop at five minutes 
of nine. If I do not stop at that time you give me 
some kind of a signal, you call out Amen." I began to 
speak. I got quite interested. I spoke for a little while 
and then I thought I w r ould look at the clock. I was 
safe ; my time was not yet up. All right. Then I 
started off again and I forgot myself, and presently a 
little girl piped out over in the corner, " Amen I" And 

192 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 193 

I stopped. I say you are very much like that little 
girl ; you want short speakers this afternoon. 

Mr. Moderator, I am commissioned to bring to the 
Board of Home Missions to-day the congratulations of 
the Board of Ministerial Relief. This is a family gather- 
ing. We have invited in a few of our neighbors, as has 
been said, our Episcopal neighbor and our Baptist neigh- 
bor, and so on. But it is rather a family gathering. 
The moderator said he thought that brotherhood was the 
spirit of Christianity to-day. I think it is sisterhood. 
We speak of the Board of Home Missions — " she," and 
the Board of so and so — " she." They seem to be all 
daughters in this family of the Presbyterian Church. 
We have come in this afternoon to bring our congratu- 
lations to the oldest sister, the oldest sister in the family 
— a hundred years old. I do not see the birthday cake 
round here to-day. They usually have a cake, you 
know, on a birthday, with so many candles on it. I do 
not see the cake with the hundred candles. Perhaps 
they are saving it up for Carnegie Hall to-night, or per- 
haps this lady is a little modest and does not want to 
keep her age so prominent as to burn a hundred 
candles here this afternoon. But let me say to you, 
Mr. Moderator, in all candor and sincerity, that the 
Board of Ministerial Relief brings very hearty congratu- 
lations to the Board of Home Missions, her oldest sister. 
I think it is unfortunate that it should have fallen to me 
to have to bring these greetings. I think it rather should 
have been that gentleman sitting down in the pew there, 
Dr. Agnew, who knows so much more about ministerial 

13 



194 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

relief and home missions than I do ; but he is a very 
modest man, and, while we urged him to come, he de- 
clined. I think it would have been well if you had had 
Dr. Samuel T. Lowrie, venerable and dignified and 
faithful to the cause of ministerial relief. He could 
have brought these greetings to-day. But it has fallen 
upon me. I do not know why, unless my head is gray 
and my body is young. 

Now all these men whom I have mentioned — Dr. 
Agnew, Dr. Lowrie, Dr. Knox, Mr. Bartlett, the presi- 
dent, and other gentlemen — would have been glad to- 
day to have been here and to have joined in the cele- 
bration of this hundredth anniversary of the Board of 
Home Missions. But do you know, when I come to 
think of it, it is not so much their congratulations that 
I ought to bring you to-day, heartily as they do con- 
gratulate you, heartily as they enter into sympathy with 
the work of the Board of Home Missions, — the Board 
of Ministerial Relief has a constituency that I believe 
will send you more hearty congratulations even than the 
members of this Board. You have already been told 
that the Board of Ministerial Relief has had upon its 
rolls this last year over nine hundred names. The most 
interesting fact, I think, in connection with that report 
and with those figures is this : 140 men who received 
help from that Board have passed their seventieth birth- 
day, and they have spent an average of forty-four years 
in the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. Stop a 
moment and think about those 140 men. The fact is, 
that a majority of those men have labored under the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 195 

Home Board. The fact is, that a majority of those men 
— no, I will say all of those men — are rejoicing to-day 
in what has been accomplished through this Board. 
But a majority of them rejoice in the fact that they have 
their part, and not a small part either, in accomplish- 
ing what has been done by the Board of Home Mis- 
sions in this line. Those men have done their work, 
but they have not forgotten the work they did, nor 
have they forgotten the Board under w r hich they worked. 
They rejoice that she has been able to accomplish what 
she has done, and they send their hearty congratulations 
and pray, as I know they do, every one of them, and 
pray that the hundred years to come shall see greater 
things accomplished by this Board than the hundred 
years that are past. But there is a larger company 
than that. There are some 200 men, many of whom, 
a majority of whom, have worked under the Board of 
Home Missions, who are laid aside, with broken health, 
with shattered nerves, who are unable to prosecute their 
work further, and they are laid aside. They are receiv- 
ing help from the Board of Ministerial Relief. They 
send their congratulations. Do you imagine that there 
is one of those men who w r ould not be glad if to-day 
he could be laboring as he has done before, many of 
them under the Board of Home Missions, to-day? 
You have certified, brethren, you have certified, in your 
presbyterial capacities, to the worthiness of every one of 
those men, and if they are worthy, and I am sure they are, 
they would most gladly be at their posts to-day carrying 
on this work. They send you their congratulations. 



FROM THE BOARD OF CHURCH ERECTION 

BY THE 

KEV. DAVID MAGIE, D. D. 
Paterson, N. J. 



To the Board of Home Missions : 
Dear Brethren : — 

It was a matter of deep regret to me personally, and 
to the Board of Church Erection , which laid upon me 
the pleasant duty of representing them, on the occasion 
of the celebration by the General Assembly of your 
completion of a century of work, that owing to a mis- 
understanding of the time, our Board was not repre- 
sented in the offering to your Board the congratulations 
of all the boards of our Church. And this has been to 
our Board a matter of even greater regret, because with 
no other board is our work more intimately and har- 
moniously connected. 

In offering to you on such an occasion our congratu- 
lations we can speak from an intimate knowledge of 
your officials and your work. It has been your work 
to break up the soil, and sow the seed, and gather the 
harvest ; it has been our work to prepare the buildings 
where your harvests could be garnered and where your 

196 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 197 

laborers could be sheltered. With such a special oppor- 
tunity to judge of the greatness and value of your work, 
we offer our most sincere congratulations. 

And it is with great pleasure we present to the Church, 
which w T e both serve with one spirit, the harmony of 
purpose and mutual respect and confidence which exist 
between our two Boards. We shall endeavor in the 
future, as in the past, to do all in our power to establish 
the work you are doing, and to extend and build up our 
Church in this land. 

One hundred years of pioneer work for God and our 
country call for grateful remembrance. The wise and 
devoted men who planned and carried on this remark- 
able work deserve to be remembered. And those 
faithful, devoted men who, in hardship and danger, 
struggled and labored and suffered and died, deserve 
honorable remembrance ; and as truly the wives, who 
in loneliness and want, sustained their courage and never 
faltered in service. 

If the past calls for remembrance and gratitude, the 
future calls for new consecration. The experience of 
the past, the full confidence of the Church, the memory 
of the noble men who have guided your affairs, and the 
assurance that your work is in the hands of men as 
wise and faithful as those who have preceded them, may 
well give you courage and stir you to new efforts. The 
frontier no longer advances into an unoccupied territory, 
but it is found in our cities. The task before us is ever 
growing greater and will require new efforts and larger 
expenditures. To our Church and to our God we must 



198 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

look for the means to do a larger work. The earnest 
prayer of the Board of Church Erection is that your 
future work may be more glorious and successful than 
the past. 

I remain with very great respect, on behalf of this 
board, 

David Magie, 

Board of Church Erection Booms. Bresident. 



FROM THE BOARD FOR FREEDMEN 

BY THE 

EEV. HENKY T. McCLELLAND, D. D. 
Pittsburg, Pa. 



Mr, Moderator : — 

The Board of Home Missions, aged one hundred 
years, domiciled in the city of New York, receives by 
these presents from the Board of Missions for Freed- 
men, aged thirty-seven years, domiciled in the city of 
Pittsburg, congratulations, greetings of love, and God- 
speed. Of all the noble board connection we are your 
nearest of kin. We, to speak in the happy vein of the 
people we represent, to w T hom we belong, we are your 
own little pickaninny, your " Alabama coon." We 
come from the same soil. I understand that sporadic- 
ally, at least, the Board of Home Missions sprang up 
in the alma terra of sooty Pittsburg. We have been 
nourished by the same soil. And since you have moved 
to New York we know it to be a fact that you have often 
written home for money, and, as far as we know, you 
have never been refused. 

We have followed you with intense interest in all your 
noble and worthy work. True, we have sometimes thought 
in your career that you were growing so ponderous and 

199 



200 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

great that we could not follow you. You reminded us 
very much of a little incident published in the Harpers' 
Drawer some years ago. There was the great old 
"Aunty/' broad and ponderous and full of dignity, 
glorious in her bandanna, filling up all the roadway in 
her majesty, and some fifty feet behind her came a 
poor little shrivelled pickaninny, bow-legged, spindle- 
shanked, with a great basket of clothes on his head, and 
he piped out and said, " Where you gwine, granny ? 
Where you gwine ? " " Ise gwine where Ise gwine, 
that's where Ise gwine. Aint goin' to tell you where 
Ise gwine. Ise gwine where Ise gwine, that's where 
Ise gwine." 

We have sometimes thought that was the way it was 
going with you, because we thought there was more 
grass in your grandfather's meadow than in all the 
alkali plains of the West, and we thought that per- 
haps there is more true home missionary country to 
the square inch in the sunny Southland than there 
is where they drive dog sleds for a thousand miles 
without seeing the face of man. That's all right. We 
believe in home missions, and we pray you God speed. 
They do not neglect us. We get plenty of money 
at home, and, in common with all the good board 
family, we have the same great Church to appeal to, 
the same General Assembly to come up and recom- 
mend us year after year for ample gifts for all our 
work. We ought not to be jealous, for there is far more 
pabulum in our sources of supply than we ever can get, 
both of us together, and there is a great deal more than 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 201 

we could ever assimilate, even if we did obtain it. So 
we thank God and take courage because you are going 
on. We are only thirty-seven years old and you are a 
hundred, and it always makes the younger members of 
the family feel happy to see the vigor of the older mem- 
bers, their longevity. But if you are so vigorous at the 
age of one hundred, what may we not hope to be ? We 
are thankful here that the vista which your progress and 
success have afforded us does not, by any means, shorten 
your own. 

There is a tie that we wish to mention here. There 
is another, — " she" is a " sister." Long ago, in the Holy 
Land, from the fat uplands of Galilee, on the blue marge 
of that glorious lake where Jesus walked and talked, 
there were certain women who ministered of their sub- 
stance to the King and Head, the greatest of all home 
missionaries ; and there are, in this land and in our 
beloved Church, certain other women, a glorious and 
mighty company, who are perpetuating in prayers and 
gifts rich and full, and increasing this glorious service. 
They bear your name and ours together. This is an 
alliance material for the progress of our common work. 
It is an alliance spiritual, which promises glorious results 
in the years to come. You are indeed flesh of our flesh, 
bone of our bone, soul of our soul. 

Our common interests make us wondrous kind to 
one another. The specific differences in our work 
also afford a means of calling out our affection, one for 
the other. We of the Freedmen's Board are not blind 
to the side that you see in your vision of consecration 



202 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

for the Master. We also see outstretched hands that 
outvie in number and in strange shapes the hands in 
Vedder's illustration of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khay- 
yam, and we hear voices that, to the uninitiated, out- 
jargon a thousand times the cries that were heard on 
Pentecost. We hear these multitudinous voices from 
many native-born in our own land and from strange 
peoples gathering here freely from many lands. We 
on our own part hear with devout insight and sym- 
pathy every day and hour one great minor strain that, 
coming from the Southland, overwhelms us with 
pathetic insistence and with a divine call. I say that 
the peculiarities of our work, — yours continental, ours 
provincial ; yours diversified and extensive, ours con- 
centrated and intense, — only makes our love for one 
another and our prayers more earnest and sincere. We 
thank God for your history, that under the imperial 
Christ you have had generals greater than ever gathered 
about the great Napoleon ; that you have had soldiers 
out on the firing line and about the heart of the imperial 
Christ braver than the soldiers of any " Old Guard " 
that ever fought the world's battles. We thank God 
that the star of your destiny has had a hundred years' 
dawn. We pray that that star may rise through all 
the years to come, and shine through all the lands, so 
that as your prayer is and ours with you, this land of 
ours shall become a basis of cosmopolitan supply, and 
all the world through us may hear of Christ in the sim- 
plicity of the gospel and in the power of the Holy 
Spirit. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 203 

We bring you our greetings. God bless you, in- 
crease your facilities, multiply your agencies, and God 
bless us that we may stand in our lot till the end of the 
days, and that our crowns together may be cast at the 
feet of him who loves the white man wherever he is 
born and from whatever clime he comes, and who loves 
the black man with his heart of hearts. 



FROM THE BOARD OF AID FOR COLLEGES 

BY THE 

REV. HERRICK JOHNSON, D. D., LL. D. 
Chicago, III. 



Mr. Moderator and Brethren : — 

The last of the boards and the youngest, the Ben- 
jamin of the family , brings to the oldest brother 
hearty greeting and the most joyful congratulations. 
The youngest brother, the Board of College Aid, is only 
eighteen years old and still in his teens, while a cen- 
tury's record has been made by, and a century's honors 
are on the head of, our oldest brother, Home Missions. 

This is called a " Fellowship Meeting." It is well 
named, for there is not only a wideness, but a oneness of 
interest represented here to-day. All our Church Boards 
are unified in the great commission : " Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation." 
These boards are the missionary scheme embodied in or- 
ganization for the purpose of going into all the world and 
preaching the gospel to the whole creation, and though 
only three of them are named mission boards, they all are 
missionary in spirit and organized for the express purpose 
of giving the gospel to the whole creation, and without 
this there would be no justification for their existence. 

Home missions was organized one hundred years ago, 

204 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 205 

and the first in the field. For the gospel must begin to 
be preached at Jerusalem. What followed next? 
Ministerial education. Presbyterians believe in cul- 
ture, in discipline, in scholarship. They believe that 
as error is championed by the ripest scholarship, truth 
must be alike championed or leave the field. Whatever 
foundations may be laid, and whatever imposing super- 
structure may be reared, if in the building work you do 
not hear the constant click of the intellectual trowel, 
and the constant ring of the intellectual hammer, some- 
thing is the matter with the building work. So we want 
men of education. 

What followed that? Foreign missions. For the 
Church of God in this land could not keep between 
these two seas and obey Christ. 

Publication the same year. Why ? Because the ob- 
ligation to preach the gospel by the living voice carried 
with it the obligation to preach it by metallic type, and 
through the publication boards we are scattering the 
gospel as the leaves of the morning. 

Church erection next, because the mission church 
must have a house in which to worship. 

Ministerial relief followed, because after a fight of 
years, enduring great hardship as good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ, these scarred and war-worn veterans 
needed to be cared for in their old age, seeing that 
during all the years of their activity and service they 
have scarcely had a salary to keep them from want. 

So these eight boards arch the ministerial life from 
the cradle to the grave. 



206 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

The Board of College Aid builds the college, the 
Christian college, that is fitted to rear the Christian 
missionary. The Board of Education helps that man 
through the college. The Boards of Home Missions and 
Foreign Missions and Freedmen locate that man and 
give him a field. The Board of Publication arms and 
equips him for service. The Board of Church Erection 
gives him a house of worship, and the Board of Minis- 
terial Relief tenderly and lovingly cares for him in his 
old age. This is the unity of the boards. They are our 
missionary scheme, you see, embodied in organization. 
Mission boards all of them. Each has its own work. 
The eye cannot say to the ear, " I have no need of 
thee." The hand cannot say to the foot, " I have no 
need of thee." Home missions cannot say to Education, 
" I have no need of thee." Foreign missions cannot say 
to the Board of College Aid, "I have no need of thee." 
The hand cannot do the foot's work. The ear cannot do 
the eye's work. Put a leg where the arm is. Lodge it 
in the socket at the shoulder, and what kind of effi- 
ciency would you have ? Brethren of all the boards, keep 
to your own fields. Do your own work. Let us each 
in his own place meet his responsibility. 

Then again, their proportion. If any man or board 
bulges large without proper consideration of the inter- 
ests that are represented in the other boards, he is get- 
ting this system out of proportion. He has lost balance, 
and therefore so far injured the work. He is swelling 
unduly in one direction to the exclusion of this har- 
monious and beautiful proportion which lies in the com- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 207 

prehension of the whole situation. If the whole body 
were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole 
were an ear, where were the smelling ? Just think of 
that for a moment. Suppose home missions should 
absorb the situation, where would the foreign field be ? 
Where would education be ? Where would the men 
be that are to take the places in the home field and in 
the foreign field ? If the whole body were an eye, just 
conceive what kind of a body it would be — a great, 
enormous goggle eye walking about on two legs. Sup- 
pose the whole body were an ear, and what kind of a 
thing would we have? An expanding, and ever ex- 
panding ear ! You know what animal w T e see that is 
all ear. Samson could not have done half as much with 
a living ass as he did with the jawbone of a dead one. 

Their mutual dependence. These eight boards are 
mutually dependent upon one another. How can the 
home missions or the foreign missions get along without 
men ? How can they have the right men except they 
be educated ? How can they be rightly educated except 
in a Christian college ? And so we go, you see, from 
board to board, and place to place, and reason to rea- 
son, and we find them all interlocked, and interlaced, 
and marshaled together, unified, representing a single 
interest. I remember a saying by Phelps that expresses 
this relationship very beautifully with respect to two of 
these boards. He said in a very impressive way : " If 
I were a missionary in Canton, I would pray every 
morning for home missions in America for the sake of 
Canton" And I remember reading in Rogers' Essays, 



208 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

away back in my seminary days, an essay on " Reason 
and Faith/' in which was another beautiful illustration 
of this same interdependence and mutual intimate rela- 
tionship. He represented reason and faith as twin- 
born, but each, alas, suffering a sad privation. While 
reason had an eye of piercing intelligence, his ear was 
closed to sound ; and while faith had an ear of exquisite 
delicacy, upon her sightless eyeballs as she lifted them 
toward heaven the sunbeams played in vain. And so 
the two, hand in hand, went through the world, the eye 
of reason by day the guide of faith, and the ear of faith 
by night the guide of reason. So these benevolent agen- 
cies of our beloved Church go hand in hand, each meet- 
ing a need not met by the others, and all mutually 
helpful and dependent. 

What is the conclusion from all this? First, brethren, 
no pet cause in a pulpit or in a church. An offering 
for every cause. All the boards one cause. They 
constitute the arch, as I have said once before, in our 
scheme of Christian benevolence. The Board of Col- 
lege Aid puts the first stone in the arch ; the Board 
of Education, the second ; the Boards of Foreign and 
Home Missions and Freedmen, three great stones on 
beyond. The Board of Publication, the next. The 
Board of Ministerial Relief, the last. And there we 
have the completed arch from the cradle to the grave 
of the ministerial life. God bless the church that thus 
seeks to honor him in this great stewardship, and com- 
bines all her forces in the effort to take this world for 
Christ. 



FROM HOME MISSION SOCIETIES 



OF 



OTHER DENOMINATIONS 



14 



THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION 
SOCIETY 



BY THE 



REV. W. C. P. RHOADES, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
(Chairman of Executive Board.) 



Mr. Moderator, Fathers, and Brethren : — 

The American Baptist Home Mission Society to the 
Home Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church sends 
hearty Christian greetings, congratulations, and best 
wishes. 

As a society we cannot report, as you do this year, a 
complete century of splendid service; we have just com- 
pleted our seventieth year. But as your work rejoices 
and stimulates us, so may our work comfort and encour- 
age you. In seventy years we have issued more than 
26,000 commissions to missionaries and teachers, who 
have reported the organization of more than 10,000 
Sunday schools and the organization of 5610 churches. 
They have baptized, on confession of their faith, more 
than 170,000 believers. Since the establishment of our 
" Gift Fund " (20 years ago) we have aided in the erec- 
tion of more than 1600 church edifices — total cost 
$3,500,000— with accommodations for 400,000 wor- 
shipers. We are helping to maintain more than 30 

211 



212 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

schools (for negroes and Indians mainly) with a yearly 
enrollment of 6000 pupils, more than 400 of whom 
are students for the ministry. We are preaching the 
gospel, in their own tongues, to 22 different nation- 
alities or peoples. Our field is North America and our 
motto is, " North America for Christ !" 

We join hands with you to-day as Christians — saved 
by Christ, servants of Christ — fellow-workers with 
Christ in the most blessed work in the world. 

We join hands with you as patriots ; for surely these 
societies present patriotism in its most perfect form. 
If they are rightly counted lovers of their country 
who, in times of its peril, go forth with sword or gun 
to battle for months or years (it may be to death) against 
their country's foes, how much more those who spend a 
lifetime in fighting against ignorance and ungodliness, 
the greatest enemies of every country and every home ! 
If they are rightly counted worthy of their country's 
lasting honor who, in time of danger, lay their fortunes 
at her feet that armies may be equipped for her pro- 
tection, what shall be said of those who have estab- 
lished recruiting stations for righteousness (which ex- 
alteth nations) in all the land ; who have built church 
forts as centers of strength and power in all her bor- 
ders, and have garrisoned these with faithful veterans 
enlisted for life ! The work of these home mission 
societies is unsurpassed in the largeness and purity 
of its patriotism, and they deserve well of their 
country. 

We join hands with you as lovers and servants of 



CENTENNIAL OE HOME MISSIONS 213 

humanity itself. The tide of immigration is again at 
its flood, and we teach and preach (in our own land) in 
the languages of all the great nations of the earth. The 
great problems of these moving tides of humanity are 
ours in common with all good citizens ; but they do not 
overwhelm us with despair, for we are confident we have 
their solution. We are not of those who are with- 
out hope. We do not class these millions with the few 
lawless ones. The great mass of those who have sought 
homes here have been humble, hard-working, conscien- 
tious, God-fearing men and women. In politics, in 
finances, in education, in religion, our country's debt is 
incalculably great to the nations whose sons have 
swarmed to our shores. The problem for us, as Chris- 
tian workers, is not how to shut out, but rather how to 
build in and build up. To those who are permitted to 
come here let there be given a welcome, warm, thought- 
ful, helpful ; let a brotherly interest be manifested in 
their settlement and welfare ; let free schools be pro- 
vided for them and an open Bible be given to them — 
all these, together with the atmosphere of the kindest, 
freest, best country the sun shines on — and assimilation 
will take care of itself. 

AVe unite with you in prayer for the perfecting of the 
kingdom of Christ in our own beloved land : that Chris- 
tians may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all 
things. No generation of Christians ever had larger 
opportunities ; no generation of Christians ever had 
greater resources ; no generation of Christians ever had 
more solemn responsibilities. Our field is the most 



214 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

fascinating of all, fascinating in its greatness and in the 
intensity of its life. Our field is the most important of 
all ; it fills the eye of the world to-day as no other 
country does ; it appeals to the imagination and hope 
of the world as does no other country ; it promises 
more to-day than does any other country. The meeting 
of the nations here in a new nation, rich in the experi- 
ences of the past, yet untrammeled to a great extent 
by the burdens of the past, unlimited in wealth and 
power, free to grow, puts us on our mettle and challenges 
us to do our utmost. Surely no field promises larger 
and quicker harvests. We unite with you in prayer for 
laborers, and that the children of the kingdom may be 
wise and liberal according to the opportunity. New 
conditions will present themselves in our work and we 
must be ready to meet them. 

Heretofore from scattered cabins, from gathering 
hamlets, from growing villages and towns, and embry- 
onic cities the call has been heard for one hundred 
years, and the response has been quick and generous. 
In our day a louder, more imperative call is coming 
from our great cities. In response, an expense of lov- 
ing service and of money, unknown heretofore, large 
beyond the dreams of the past, will be required in these 
coming years for our great cities. This city in which 
you meet has more people than the combined popula- 
tion of fourteen great States and Territories. 

Who is sufficient for these things ? We are — thank 
God ! — we are through Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Greetings, congratulations, and good wishes, I bring 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 215 

you from a sister society. We join hands with you as 
Christians, as patriots, as lovers and servants of 
humanity. We unite with you in prayer and effort for 
the perfecting of the kingdom of God in our beloved 
country. 



CONGREGATIONAL HOME MISSION 
SOCIETY 

BY THE 

KEV. J. B. CLAKK, D.D., New York, N. Y. 
(Senior Secretary.) 



Mr. Moderator and Brethren : — 

I have, first of all, a brief message committed to me 
by the society which I represent. I would be glad to 
have had some one read it besides myself, but Dr. 
Thompson says, "Read it yourself," and I always 
obey Dr. Thompson. 

" The Congregational Home Missionary Society ex- 
tends to the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyte- 
rian Church its most cordial greetings and congratulations 
at this centennial anniversary. 

We heartily rejoice in the splendid growth of that 
beneficent work in which you have for a hundred years, 
with steadily increasing efficiency, sought the evangeli- 
zation of our entire country. 

We note with profound gratitude to almighty God the 
statesmanlike sagacity and unwavering devotion of your 
officers and leaders, the ever-increasing generosity of 
your churches as they have seen the strategic necessity 

216 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 217 

of your work, and the unflinching heroism of your army 
of missionaries who have planted the banner of Christ 
in multitudes of places in our national domain. 

We rejoice that we too have had a share with you in 
this service of Christian patriotism. 

While we celebrated our diamond jubilee last year, 
marking seventy-five years of our existence in our pres- 
ent form, several of our State societies, which are now 
important factors in our present work, were organized 
more than one hundred years ago, and their missionaries 
were in the far west of that time. Side by side with 
you we have toiled during the century you now cele- 
brate, and our missionaries have during that time ren- 
dered over 60,000 years of service, organized 6650 
churches in every part of our republic ; and our 
churches have supported the work by their offerings 
of nearly $21,000,000. 

With our congratulations to you go our prayers to 
the great Head of the Church, that he will make your 
second century even more illustrious than the first in 
signal usefulness. And may we continue to work 
together in the same loving fellowship as now, not 
rivals but co-laborers, seeking the same great end, the 
salvation of men, and a Christian America that shall 
exemplify in all its social and civic life the ideals of 
Jesus Christ. 

Joseph B. Clark, 
Washington Choate, 

Secretaries" 



218 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Mr. Moderator and Brethren : — 

I am happy to be the bearer of such a message as 
this, and to assure you that it is something more than a 
mere form of words. You and we came from the same 
stock, the good old Puritan stock. Some of you tarried 
in the Church, hoping to redeem it, and some of us came 
out without any such hope at all. But we were both 
fighting the same battle, and with almost the same wea- 
pons. And that battle has made us one family and one 
fold, with just a little difference, perhaps, in our methods 
of housekeeping, that is all. I doubt, brethren, if any 
man, whatever his theological acumen, going into one of 
your churches or into one of ours any Lord's day, could 
tell the difference between them, either in doctrine or in 
worship, unless he were exceptionally unfortunate in his 
choice. A little difference in the emphasis here and 
there, that is about all he would discover. We cannot 
forget either, brethren, that in the closing days of the 
eighteenth century there was something almost like or- 
ganic union came to pass between us, when delegates from 
your General Assembly were received by our New Eng- 
land Association, and delegates from Massachusetts and 
Connecticut Associations were welcomed by your Gen- 
eral Assembly as members, and when they discussed the 
same questions on the same floor and had an equal vote 
also in settling them. I scarcely know how we escaped 
organic union at that time, we came so very near it. 
Nor can we forget that in the early years of the nine- 
teenth century, when our hearts were so burdened about 
those new settlements of the West, your missionaries and 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 219 

ours went out with clasped hands bearing commissions 
from the same old American Home Missionary Society, 
supported by the same treasury, and that treasury filled 
by your gifts and by ours combined. That lasted thirty- 
five years, that union. It would be lasting to-day but 
for the hope which has been well assured and sustained 
that by division we could accomplish yet larger con- 
quests for the common Lord. But that was the history 
of our home missionary work for thirty-five years. Nor 
least of all can we, brother Congregationalists, forget 
that famous " plan of union," that historic plan of union, 
that bound our churches on the frontier together for 
more than fifty years. Never was a fairer compact than 
that. Never were contracting parties more liberal, more 
honest, more sincere, more just in their intentions than 
they, and if the result has been somewhat less fortunate 
for us than for you, we have only to remember that it 
was not you who proposed it, but we. It came from 
Connecticut to you, and not from you to us. Brethren, 
we do not regret the plan of union. Do not for a 
moment think it. The more you look at it the more it 
shines as the most splendid object lesson of Christian 
comity which the last century witnessed, from end to 
end. We do not regret either the vantage which came 
to you from it, — not in the least, — when we see that by 
just so much more the Puritan faith and the Puritan 
spirit, which are above all denominational advantage, 
have been disseminated throughout the land. And if we 
are somewhat poorer by the arrangement, — poorer, we 
are told, by several hundred churches, — well, we comfort 



220 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

ourselves with the thought that it is an honorable 
poverty which, like that of the apostle, has made many 
rich. 

Brethren, what shall we say now of the present and 
the future ? One word only : Let brotherly love con- 
tinue. Thank God we must not, we need not say, Let 
there be brotherly love, or, Let brotherly love be re- 
stored ; but, Let brotherly love continue, as it was in the 
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, yes, world without 
end. 

Brethren, there is a great deal more Christian comity 
in our missionary work than some critics would have us 
believe, especially that critic who gets his judgment from 
a car window flying through a town at the rate of 
sixty miles an hour. He sees so many steeples, — he 
counts everything that looks like a spire, — like a man I 
heard of, who even counted the ambitious dome of a 
hennery for a spire. Everything counts for a spire in 
the eyes of that man, and he rushes into print with a 
harrowing tale of the awful wickedness and the awful 
multiplicity of churches, and the awful waste of men 
and money on the frontier. Well, brethren, whatever 
truth there may be in it, it does not hold between Pres- 
byterians and Congregationalists, because we have our 
practical way of settling all those difficulties. We have 
our compact, and it is a working compact. It works. 
About the only question we have to consider, the most 
delicate and difficult one — about some church that is sup- 
posed to be dead, when other people think it isn't. But 
I have this to say with regard to that, brethren : If you 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 221 

ever discover a dead Congregational church on mis- 
sionary ground, we will join with you in holding a 
mutual inquest over the remains. And you cannot do 
us a greater favor if that church is holding the ground 
in any other way than as a corpse should, you cannot do 
us a greater favor than by planting a live Presbyterian 
Church right over its grave. And we will do th$ same 
for you. For Congregationalists, whatever their al- 
leged heresies, brethren, do not believe in the continued 
probation of a church after death. Then let brotherly 
love continue. That is about all the message I have. 
We were told by one of our pulpit orators the other 
day that never since the church began on earth have 
denominational lines been more distinctly drawn than 
to-day. That may be true. But it is only half true. 
Never since the day of Pentecost has there been so much 
real union between denominations as there is to-day. 
Never such mutual charity between them ; never such 
respect for things in which we differ, and never, never, 
I am sure, such loving accord in all evangelistic and 
missionary work. I say then, let brotherly love con- 
tinue. Your beloved and honored and noble secretary 
came to Boston last season and gave us a most cordial 
right hand of your fellowship. It was lovely. I wish 
you all could have heard him. You know how it must 
have been for you know him. Now it is my great 
pleasure to stand here to-day and to respond to that 
loving greeting, and to offer to you the right hand of our 
fellowship. In the name of the Congregational Home 
Missionary Society, in the name of the Congregational 



222 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

churches that stand behind it, I give you a loving God- 
speed for the new century. Let there be only one con- 
tention between us, which shall redeem the larger por- 
tion of this fair land to King Emanuel ; and I pray 
God, brethren, that when we shout together the harvest 
home, your share in the glorious result will be both 
abundant and rewarding. 



MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

BY 

BISHOP E. G. ANDEEWS, D. D. 

New York, N. Y. 



Mr. Moderator: — 

I also am commissioned to bring greetings, congratu- 
lations, and God-speed, and this from the Missionary 
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. And now, 
Mr. Moderator, what more shall I say ? Have not the 
topics which have thus been enumerated been thor- 
oughly exhausted ? Yet words of affection may be often 
repeated without weariness. Let me then give you the 
greetings of this sister church and its missionary society 
as brethren to you beloved in the household of faith ; as 
coworkers with you in the kingdom and patience of 
our Lord Jesus Christ ; as heirs with you of the great 
salvation. Blessed be God for his infinite compassions 
to us. I congratulate you upon the century of your 
history, the opportune moment of your organization, the 
decades that have followed of faithful work under most 
skillful leadership, the large increase of churches under 
your care, the multitudes who, saved and led to Christ 
by your ministrations, have already crossed the flood, 

223 



224 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

and the still larger number, perhaps, that remain, work- 
ing in the churches which you have founded ; upon the 
colleges and schools which you have established, upon 
the broad liberalities which you have inculcated, and 
upon the patriotic service which you, in common with 
a multitude of your fellow-men, have been able to 
render. I bid you God-speed ; for, brethren, the work 
that lies before us in the coming century is incomparably 
greater, I think, and even more difficult than that 
which has already been accomplished. We have had 
a marvelous growth of population ; but what shall be 
the population of this fair land when the year 2000 
shall have been rung? I think, at a very moderate 
calculation, it must be at least four hundred millions of 
people, covering all the plains, crowding all the cities, 
accumulating forces for good or for evil beyond our 
power of estimate. And these are the generations that 
we are to meet. They are to be composite in character. 
How admirably one of our brethren this afternoon set 
that forth, together with the hopefulness of the condi- 
tions thus arising ! 

But then, further, these great social and economic 
questions that are vexing us to the core in these days, 
these solicitudes that press upon so many humane and 
Christian and patriotic hearts, of the relation of class 
to class, of labor to capital, and beyond that, then that 
new spirit of independence in thought, of inquiry, of 
unwillingness to receive from the fathers aught of their 
affirmed knowledge ; that spirit leading to such wide- 
spread doubt and criticism, in so many cases touching 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 225 

the very fundamentals of our faith, — these are the things 
that it seems make the future that lies before us one of 
very great anxiety to every thoughtful man ; and he 
who understands aught of this problem thus to be 
solved must turn to this society, with other kindred 
societies, and from the profound depths of his heart 
wish it God-speed. May your agencies be abundantly 
multiplied. May your treasury be overflowing. May 
your leadership be more skillful than any that you have 
known even in your palmiest days, and so may you 
contribute to that great work which the Lord of the 
vineyard has laid upon us all. 

I have rejoiced in these days at what I have been 
privileged to see and hear of your work. I was present 
during a greater part of yesterday afternoon and heard 
the presentations then made so wisely and so eloquently 
touching your work, as you crossed the Alleghenies, 
and prospected through the Mississippi Valley, and 
climbed the Rockies, and poured yourself upon the 
Pacific Slope. I thanked God for it. But I thank 
God that you did not stand alone in that work. I may 
rehearse for a moment the work of our own church 
possibly without offending you. We did not begin our 
formal and organized work so early as did yourselves. 
Indeed, we did not begin our church life so early. It 
was in the year 1766 that Mr. "Wesley's first two 
missionaries landed at Gloucester City, opposite Phila- 
delphia, and began their ministration, so that we have 
only a church life of about half the length of your own 
life in this country, perhaps not half the length of that 

15 



226 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

life ; I think not. And we were poor as well as feeble, 
too ; but from the beginning I think the missionary 
spirit was in us unorganized, as I am glad to learn from 
your various documents and statements it was in your 
Presbyterian Church. And Mr. Asbury, our first great 
leader in America, before there was any mission- 
ary society organized, began to collect in the eastern 
regions funds with which he crossed toward the Alle- 
ghenies, and crossed the Alleghenies, supplying, out of 
the scanty resources thus gathered, the needs of the 
laboring men who had borne themselves, carried them- 
selves, sometimes with their families, into that western 
world. Sixty times did Mr. Asbury cross the Alle- 
ghenies before the year 1816 (when his course termi- 
nated), mostly on horseback, carrying the gospel into 
those regions to his brethren gone before him, so that 
they as well as yourselves occupied that region, and the 
Tennessee and Kentucky region, and then the Ohio 
region ; and so we went on doing this work, which at 
length, with the work done by your society, and by 
other brethren of other churches, has turned that broad 
and glorious Mississippi Valley into one of the great 
treasuries of the Lord's people and of the Lord's Church. 
The upshot of it is this, that to-day we have only one 
missionary society in our church, covering both our for- 
eign and our home work. But the appropriations 
made for that home work by this society, added to the 
appropriations realized, the moneys realized by the 
Women's Home Missionary Board of our church, 
amount to somewhat over $800,000 each year. We 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 227 

have a vast constituency. We wish they were better 
than they are. We wish they were more liberal than 
they are. But still we are gaining and growing in this 
matter, and we hope for a long time, a very long time, 
to be united with you in the great work of turning this 
land into EmanuePs land. 

Pardon me, sir, for taking so much of your time. I 
rejoice, brethren, in your successes, and pray God's 
blessing upon you in all your work. 



DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SO- 
CIETY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCO- 
PAL CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 

BY THE 

REV. D. H. GREER, D.D. 

New York, N. Y. 



Mr. Moderator and Christian Brethren : — 

It is a great pleasure to be able to stand upon this 
platform, although for a moment I had some little diffi- 
culty in getting here. One of your courteous ushers, 
not recognizing my Presbyterian affinities, questioned 
for a moment my right to appear before you. But here 
I am, and here I am glad to be, and I esteem it a great 
privilege and honor to have been selected to convey to 
you the hearty good wishes and congratulations, upon 
this your one hundredth anniversary, of the Domestic 
and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church. Your home missionary society is older 
than ours. We have not yet reached and celebrated our 
centennial. And yet, notwithstanding this difference in 
our ages and our comparative youth, we are trying in 
our missionary enterprise and aggressiveness to keep up 

228 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 229 

and to catch up with you, and perhaps, — I do not know, 
— have already done so. Not, however, in the spirit of 
ecclesiastical rivalry, but in that other and nobler spirit 
of Christian fellowship and charitable competition which 
provokes unto love and unto good works. There are, 
to be sure, some differences between us, but I have 
heard rumors to the effect that there are some differences 
among yourselves. Some of you are low church Pres- 
byterians ; some others are high church ; some others 
broad church, and that there are others again, like my 
honored friend and your distinguished moderator, w T ho, 
in the beautiful catholicity and comprehensiveness of his 
Christian character, has acquired that Christian art, 
that fine Christian art, of learning how to unite and to 
adorn them all. Intimations may have come to you 
that differences of the same or of similar character exist 
among ourselves in the Episcopal Church ; and yet we 
can all somehow manage to live and work together, and 
perhaps to do, not in spite of our differences, if they are 
not too radical and vital, but because of our differences, 
better and more effectual Christian work, reaching out 
thereby and touching many different lines, many different 
persons, and many different types of temperament, and 
character, and thought; establishing here and there 
different points of view, not one of which alone, but all 
of which together, shall constitute the circle points, the 
ever- widening circle points, surrounding Jesus Christ, 
the life of that great, strong Son of God which no human 
term can compass and define. Thus will Christendom 
become like a great prism, reflecting Jesus Christ in 



230 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

beautiful color lights, and bringing out more completely 
the fullness of him who filleth all in all. 

Yet while differences exist, unity must exist too. 
And where and how is that unity to be found? Gentle- 
men, in my judgment, not through our General Con- 
ventions, or your General Assemblies, but in the mis- 
sionary field where the representatives of our various 
missionary societies, — the pioneer work on the frontier 
line, like soldiers of different regiments or of different 
army divisions, yet with the same battle flag and under 
the same banner, — are confronting the same hostile forces, 
and by their common aim and effort shall react upon 
Christendom at large, and give its true unity to it. Not 
only shall we contribute thus to the unity of the Church, 
but to the unity of the State, giving to it that permanent 
support which it can only have in the everlasting prin- 
ciples of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is 
your conviction, my brethren, and that is our conviction, 
and what we are both trying to do is to give to the 
State that permanent support. We are trying this year 
to raise $1,000,000 for our steady general missionary 
w r ork, in addition to specific and special contributions 
for the foreign and domestic fields. If you shall try to 
reach twice that sum, or three times or ten times, God 
bless you in your effort and give it abundant success. 
For the field is big and broad, and there is room enough 
for all. Only let us remember that it is our common 
task to introduce the spirit of Jesus Christ into our 
American life, to put his spirit into the wheels of our 
industrial developments, and to stamp his image on the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 231 

coins of our physical and plutocratic enlargements, and, 
brethren, touched and anointed with that Pentecostal 
spirit which gave birth to the Christian Church, that is 
what we shall do. 

The traveler who visits the city of Rome to-day finds 
among the ruins of that once famed metropolis a column 
of marble erected by the Roman Senate and people to 
the memory of the Emperor Trajan, with the words 
placed there two thousand years ago, and the bas reliefs 
setting forth in due course his achievements, and there 
stands on the top of that shaft, not the statue of the 
emperor, but of the great champion and apostle of Jesus 
Christ, as if all the figures were intended to lead up to 
Jesus Christ. And what we are trying to do in our 
missionary efforts is to make Jesus Christ as a practical 
force come into our American civilization, with the loco- 
motive, and the railroad, and the mine, and the shop, 
and the factory, and the telegraph, and the printing press, 
and to crown him Lord of all. 



BOARD OF DOMESTIC MISSIONS OF THE 
REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA 

BY THE 

REV. JAMES I. VANCE, D. D. 

Newaek, N. J. 



Mr. Moderator, Fathers, and Brethren : — 

From a Church whose d umbers are small, but whose 
sympathies are large, and whose annals are honorable, 
and whose spirit is catholic, and whose faith is suffi- 
ciently sound, I come into this fellowship meeting rep- 
resenting 112,000 American Dutchmen, many of whom, 
like myself, are of plain Scotch or, plainer, Scotch-Irish 
birth, but all of whom are loyal to the cross and to the 
flag. Representing such a constituency, I bring the 
warmest fraternal greetings to all those who are con- 
cerned with making and keeping America a Christian 
nation. I bring the hearty congratulations of my church 
to the Home Missionary Board of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America for the peerless 
contribution it has made to this supreme enterprise. 
The Reformed Church in America, or, as it is more 
affectionately known, the Dutch Reformed Church, is, 
with a single exception, the oldest Protestant organiza- 
tion in America, and was the first such church to set 

232 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 233 

foot on American soil. The question is sometimes asked 
why, with such a starter, we have not gotten more ter- 
ritory under our feet. A Dutchman has never required 
much territory for his feet. Holland is a little land, a 
little, little land of sturdy dykes and busy towns, and 
industrious honest people, but Holland has fought the 
battles of the world for civil and religious liberty. The 
Reformed Church in America has done more for other 
churches than it has for itself, and that is the reason 
why our numbers are not as large as our sympathies. 
We believe in helping out our sister churches in distress. 
The distinguished moderator of this assembly is not a 
member of our immediate communion, to be sure, but 
" van Dyke " is a most savory Dutch name, and a few 
centuries ago we gave you your present moderator. 

On this occasion also we are giving a principal speaker 
for the Home Mission Centennial Anniversary, and we 
are very glad to lend — yes, we are very glad to lend — 
our Presbyterian friends that valiant and strenuous son 
of the Reformed Church, Theodore Roosevelt, for we are 
quite sure that he wall have the meeting well in hand. 
I think you will agree with me that it is not very often 
a church manifests the spirit of ecclesiastical comity by 
lending a sister denomination in distress a President 
of the United States in order that her cup of joy may 
be full. But that is only an incident with us in our 
lavish and generous treatment of our larger but less for- 
tunate and more solicitous sisters. We do not give the 
nation a President very often ; but when we do, w r e give 
a good one. We make up in quality what we lack in 



234 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

quantity. We give a four-square American citizen 
whom all the nation respects — North, South, East, 
West — a President who was a man before ever he was a 
President, and who is a vigorous, positive Christian man 
all the time he is President. It is sometimes intimated 
that the Dutch Reformed Church has more pride of 
ancestry than hope of posterity, but that is only one 
of the mistakes of the higher critics. We have the 
ancestry, to be sure, and we are very proud of our pres- 
ent pedigree, but our face is toward the morning, and, 
in comparison with our numbers, the Reformed Church 
is conducting a missionary work at home and abroad 
which is unexcelled, and whose praise is in all the 
churches. 

So I believe that we have a right to a place on this 
platform. Prom a church whose heart beats loyal to 
the cause of home missions, I come to place one sprig 
of orange in the Presbyterian bouquet. Or, if you 
please, to weave one thread of old gold in the blue ban- 
ner we all love so well. If there be one cause in whose 
radiant presence the shadows of denominational differ- 
ence should lift and vanish, it is that cause which 
speaks from this pulpit to-day, and whose lustrous and 
inspiring goal is America for Christ. Here the things 
which divide us are lost sight of, and the things which 
unite us are foremost. The things which unite us are 
not the propagation of a dogma or the glorification of a 
saint. The sectarian is a religious provincial. He 
makes the mistake of imagining that one is a better or 
worse Christian according to his brand, and that the 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 235 

cause of Christ locates itself chiefly in his own denomi- 
national degrees of latitude and longitude. But the 
cause of home missions bursts such narrow boundaries, 
and has for its goal the Christianization of America. 
Its effort is to plant the cross, and all for which the 
cross stands, in the remotest mountain fastnesses ; to 
plant the light of the gospel in the darkest slums ; to 
send small companies of militant Christians to man the 
outposts, to preach the gospel of the Son of God so lov- 
ingly, so convincingly, so thoroughly throughout the 
length and breadth of this United States that America 
shall become a delightsome land to her own and a bless- 
ing to all mankind. The destiny of the race is in our 
keeping as never before. It is no bit of Yankee bluster 
which says, "As goes America, so goes the world." 
How shall man regard his fellow ? How and when is 
war to be waged? How are weaker peoples to be 
treated ? How is commerce to be conducted ? What 
of labor as well as what of trade ? How are gigantic 
wrongs to be righted ? America's attitude on all these 
questions is of supreme importance, and the American 
citizen to-day is vested not only with municipal and 
State and national, but with racial suffrage. The move- 
ment is a world campaign. It is something for the 
human race that America be Christian. If America is 
to be great, she must be Christian. And if she would 
be Christian abroad, she must not be pagan at home. 
And whoever lifts America closer to the heart of Christ 
is, with the same gracious heft, lifting China and India 
and Africa and the islands of the sea nearer to God. 



236 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

He is pressing the crusade of a world emancipation. If 
there be one man more than any other to-day whose 
heart should be fired with a mighty enthusiasm, it is he 
who flies the banner of the cross and the Stars and 
Stripes from the same flagstaff, and whose battle cry is, 
" America for Christ." 

Some months ago, off the coast of Malaga, a German 
training-ship went down with the loss of over 100 lives. 
The people on the land could see the wreck, but they 
could do nothing to relieve its distress. They saw waves 
of mountainous height sweep over the deck. Some of 
the cadets were swept overboard. Many climbed into 
the rigging. The people from the land saw those Ger- 
man lads in the rigging wave their caps, and then, above 
the shriek of the storm, they heard cheer after cheer 
come from the German cadets on the sinking ship. 
Those boys were drowning, but with their dying breath 
they were cheering the Kaiser and the Fatherland. It 
seems to me it is some such mighty enthusiasm as that 
which should stir the heart of the Church as we confront 
this cause of home missions. To be the citizen of such 
a country as this, to live in such a time as this, to stand 
in the morning hour of this matchless century, in the 
center of its marvelous triumphs, in the thick of its 
splendid opportunities, with America for a pulpit and 
the world for an audience, and to speak the message and 
to share in doing the work which is to make and keep 
America a Christian nation, and God's servant to all 
peoples, is to confront a chance besides which that of 
Adam dwarfs and that of Moses pales. It is enough to 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 237 

stir the pulses in the veins of death, and tongue the 
dumb with eloquence. 

Mr. Moderator, the church which I have the honor 
to represent thanks God that America has had, and still 
has, a Presbyterian Church, and that the Presbyterian 
Church has been and still is a home missionary church, 
whose courageous consecrated sons and devoted daughters 
have not hesitated to go to the hottest mark of the fir- 
ing line on the far frontier, flying the flag, and living 
and preaching the cross, that America may be Christ's. 



ALLIANCE OF REFORMED CHURCHES 

BY THE 

EEV. WM. H. KOBEETS, D. D., LL. D. 

Philadelphia, Pa. 

(American Secretary.) 



Officers of the Home Board, Fathers, and Brethren : — 
It was expected that Dr. William Caven, of the Pres- 
byterian Church in Canada, the President of the Alli- 
ance of Reformed Churches throughout the world hold- 
ing the Presbyterian system, would offer to the Presby- 
terian Board of Home Missions of this church the 
congratulations of the Alliance upon this auspicious 
occasion. Dr. Caven, however, is unavoidably absent, 
and the pleasant duty falls to my lot to speak a few 
words in connection with the work of home missions as 
it is viewed, not simply by one denomination, but by all 
the denominations throughout the world who hold the 
Calvinistic theology and the Presbyterian government. 
Let me emphasize, as I perform this duty, the fact that 
as a denomination this church of ours belongs to a great 
Christian communion ; that there is but one other com- 
munion bearing the name of Christian which is as wide- 
spread and takes in as many families of the human 

238 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 239 

race. There are geographically but two ecumenical or 
universal Christian Churches, the Roman Catholic and 
the Reformed or Presbyterian. The Reformed and 
Presbyterian Churches are found in every land, worship 
God in all civilized tongues, and stand amid all nations 
to emphasize the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of 
God, and the hopes which center in the pure gospel of 
Jesus Christ. As I speak on the subject of home mis- 
sions, it is proper that I should emphasize yet another 
fact, that these Reformed Churches, found in all civilized 
countries, have, throughout their history, emphasized in 
a peculiar manner the word of God as the supreme rule 
of faith and conduct, and the teaching and the preaching 
of that word, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, 
as the one great instrument for the conversion of souls 
and for the advancement of the welfare of mankind. 
We are not sacramentarian churches, but are the churches 
of the gospel, seeking in every way possible to render 
obedience to the command of Christ, to preach his gos- 
pel to all nations. It is eminently proper, therefore, 
that on this occasion the " Alliance of the Reformed 
Churches throughout the world " should tender to the 
Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church 
of the United States of America, to which that Church 
has entrusted the missionary teaching and preaching of 
the gospel in this great land, congratulations upon the 
Board's one hundredth anniversary. 

There has been much reference here made to the work 
of this Home Mission Board, and the opportunity given 
for the work of that Board in this country. With the 



240 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

eloquent utterances of the last speaker we all can most 
heartily concur, and unite with him in prayer to God, 
for yet further blessing upon the interests of the Church 
in connection with home missions, as they have relation 
to the future of America. It is well for the Board of 
Home Missions to be guided in all its work by the fact 
that in this land, above every other land, God is making 
possible strict and literal obedience to the command of 
Christ, "Go preach my gospel to all nations." The 
nations are being gathered, by the providence of God, 
in this city of New York, in the city of Chicago, in the 
other great centers of population, and also throughout 
the rural districts. Where is the city in the United 
States in which you will not find men of well nigh 
every color, every race, and every speech ? The peoples 
who separated in the long past at the tower of Babel 
are assembling once more within these lands west of the 
Atlantic. God has opened to the Board of Home Mis- 
sions of this church, and of every American Protestant 
church, a vast field for abounding labor. 

The Alliance of the Reformed Churches has an Ameri- 
can section, and that section holds stated semi-annual 
meetings. There was a special report upon the work of 
home missions made at the meeting held in Pittsburg on 
the 16th and 17th days of April, in the present year. 
That report showed that the work of home missions was 
being carried on by every one of the churches connected 
with the Alliance : The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
the Presbyterian Church South, the United Presbyterian 
Church, the Synod and the General Synod of the Re- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 241 

formed Presbyterian Church, the Associate Synod of the 
South, the Reformed (German) Church in the United 
States (the church with which President Roosevelt wor- 
ships), the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, the 
Welsh Presbyterian Church, and last, but not least, the 
Presbyterian Church in Canada. These ten churches, 
representing together 1,150,000 communicants and 
4,000,000 adherents, stand with the Presbyterian Church 
in the U. S. A., and its 1,000,000 communicants and 
3,500,000 adherents, for Christ and a pure gospel on 
this continent. 

One remark made by a representative of the Cana- 
dian Church at Pittsburg will bear repeating. There 
is in it that which should occasion sorrow to every 
true American heart. The Canadian Church has an 
immense home mission w T ork, as this Church has, and 
the testimony of the Canadian clergyman, speaking for 
his church, was this, that the element most difficult 
in Canada, in particular in the northwest provinces, to 
influence for religion, and the element most indifferent 
to religion, was the element that had come into Canada 
from the United States. We have in this nation, to our 
sorrow, an immense number of persons, in particular, 
men, who are not connected with any church of Jesus 
Christ, Protestant or Roman Catholic, and whose atti- 
tude toward religion is one of absolute indifference. 
Some years back the Home Mission Board published a 
pamphlet, wdiich they gave me the privilege of writing, 
the gist of which was this, that two out of every three 
of the adult males in this land w T ere not connected with 

10 



242 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

any Christian church. And this sad state of affairs was 
most evident west of the Missouri, Is there need for 
home missions ? Yes ! abounding need ! and these sister 
churches come here to-day and tender through me, as the 
American Secretary of the Alliance, to the Board of 
Home Missions of the greatest of the Presbyterian 
Churches of the world, this above all other messages : 
Brethren, a great field is open to you, a field which is 
increasingly great in the providence of God. America 
is but another name for " gospel opportunity." See to 
it that in the century now opening, and through each 
year of that century, your Home Mission Board, as in 
all the past, shall be at the front, shall lead onward the 
hosts of God, until at last this land shall be made, from 
ocean to ocean, and from North to South, in truth 
Emanuel's land. 



RESPONSE BY THE MODERATOR 

THE 

KEV. HENEY VAN DYKE, D. D., LL.D. 
Princeton, N. J. 



Fathers and Brethren : — 

It falls to my lot to reply to the addresses which have 
been made this afternoon and which have rendered this 
Fellowship Meeting most memorable. I wish that I 
could borrow from some of those who have spoken here 
their eloquence that I might make my reply more fit- 
ting. One quality it shall have, the quality of brevity. 
I can say, with an old friend of mine in Brooklyn, I 
have done a great many things that were foolish, and 
some things that were wrong, but I never did anything 
long. 

It was a great pleasure to all of us as members of the 
Presbyterian Church to listen to these felicitations which 
have been offered to our Board of Home Missions. We 
have been glad to receive the greetings of the other 
boards of the Church. It is a pleasant thing to know 
that all the boards of our great Church, like all the 
birds in a good nest, dwell together in peace and con- 
cord ; and for the same reason that the birds dwell 
together, because if they didn't they would fall out. 

243 



244 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Now to stay in, is to do just the one thing that a Pres- 
byterian is always resolved to do, and all our boards 
mean to stay in, and all to work together in harmony 
and fellowship, and we recognize more and more, the 
more we think about the work of our Church, that all 
these boards are bound together, and that the work of 
one board depends upon the success of the work of the 
other boards, and that they all cooperate, and that the 
Church is in a healthy condition when the same love 
and care and generosity is exercised toward all the 
boards. 

Now, having thanked the other boards for their cor- 
dial and friendly greetings to the Board of Home Mis- 
sions of the Presbyterian Church, it becomes my 
pleasant privilege to thank the representatives of other 
churches, who have come to us and who have spoken 
to us on behalf of our sister churches. I have to thank 
Dr. Rhoades, the representative of the Baptist Home 
Missionary Society, and tell him that we Presbyterians 
hope and wish and pray and believe that the army of 
the Lord is always going to work together with the 
navy. I have to thank Dr. Clark, who represents the 
Congregational Home Missionary Society, the society of 
a Church which has always been in closest touch with 
our own Church, so that sometimes it is difficult to dis- 
tinguish which is which in certain portions of the 
country. The Congregational Church and the Presby- 
terian Church have carried on a great exchange associa- 
tion, and many men who are now preaching in Presby- 
terian pulpits began their work in Congregational 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 245 

pulpits. I myself had the pleasure of being ordained 
by the presbytery of Brooklyn to take charge of the 
United Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode 
Island, and I found some very good Presbyterians 
there, without whose help we could not have run the 
church. It did me a great deal of good to spend four 
years there, and I learned a great many things among 
those Rhode Island Congregationalists which helped me 
to work here among New York Presbyterians. And we 
give our assurance of continued affection and Christian 
love to the Congregational Church. 

We have had with us Bishop Andrews, who has 
represented worthily, as he has done for so many years, 
the great Methodist Episcopal Church. We owe a 
great deal to that Church. It has helped us much. 
One of the latest gifts that that Church has given us 
was given no longer ago than last Sunday, when Ira D. 
Sankey, a good Methodist, joined Dr. Gregg's church 
and became a good Presbyterian. My opinion is that a 
good Methodist will always make a good Presbyterian, 
and a good Presbyterian will always make a good Meth- 
odist, and that each will help the other in the work of 
the Lord. 

We are glad to have had with us the Rev. Dr. Greer 
of St. Bartholomew's Church. He came to take the place 
of Bishop Doane. We w T ere glad to welcome him, not 
only as a representative of the bishop, but because, in 
our belief, a presbyter is as good as a bishop any day. 
We welcome him also for his works' sake, for I want to 
tell you men here who may be strangers in New York 



246 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

that there is no man in this great city to-day who is 
doing a stronger, more earnest, more faithful, more suc- 
cessful work for Jesus Christ on evangelistic lines, with 
a hand stretched out to everyone who needs it, than 
Dr. Greer in St. Bartholomew's parish. 

We welcome also, — and I extend this welcome with 
a spirit of family feeling, — we welcome Dr. Vance, from 
the Reformed Church. We are glad that the Reformed 
Church has got a man who was trained, for some years, 
in the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville, Tennes- 
see. And although the Church which he represents has 
dropped the " Dutch " out of its name, I am glad it has 
not dropped the Dutch out of its nature. It is ready to 
fight and pray, and it believes in working all the time. 
Those are Dutch characteristics. 

We welcome also and greet our friend who is known 
to all of us, our own stated clerk, who speaks to us in 
his capacity as Secretary of the Alliance of the Reformed 
Churches. We are glad to hear him strike that strong 
and deep and true evangelical note of the Reformation. 
We are glad to have him remind us that our Presbyte- 
rian Church does not stand alone, but is a member of a 
great sisterhood which reaches around the world, which 
has historic links, and which bears in its heart the treas- 
ure of the reformed faith in its purity and simplicity, 
and always will bear that treasure there to the end of 
time. 

But I do not wish to close this meeting without say- 
ing a single word in regard to the relation of home 
missions to the larger work of world evangelization. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 247 

You instructed your stated clerk and your moderator 
to send a message to Cuba. This message has been 
sent : 
" To T. Estrada Palma, 

" President of the Republic of Cuba, 
" Havana, Cuba : 
" The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States of America sends congratulations, 
and prays for God's blessing upon the new republic." 

We are glad to have a share and a prayer in the 
launching of that new republic upon the great waters 
of history, and we pray that God may preserve her 
liberty, may establish her national character in right- 
eousness and integrity, and may guide her safely on a 
long voyage of prosperity and freedom and peace. 

" Home missions " does not mean home missions for 
home alone. It means missions that begin at home and 
continue for all the world. We want America for 
Christ because we want America to help win the world 
for Christ ; and as he has given to this country a posi- 
tion of vantage, so he has given to her the great duty 
of sending out his gospel unto the uttermost parts of 
the earth. We as freemen, we as Americans, we as 
Presbyterians, realize that it is our first duty to stand 
up for Christ, the eternal and only king, and to make 
his name known to every creature under God's blue 
heaven. 



Tuesday Evening, May 20th 

CARNEGIE HALL 



"THE NEW CENTURY" 



ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN 

THE 

KEV. D. STUAET DODGE, D. D. 

New York, N. Y. 
(President of the Board of Home Missions.) 



Every true American is grateful that his country 
was founded by men who feared God ; and during all 
the years since God-fearing men and women have been 
the chief strength and glory of the nation. The Pres- 
byterian Church can fairly claim, on this centennial 
occasion, that it has furnished its full quota of these 
patriots who loved their God and loved their country. 

Religion and patriotism cannot be divorced. From 
its earliest days the Presbyterian Church has been a 
missionary church. Its first action was to send out 
missionaries to the destitute settlements and to the 
Indians, and from that day to the present these faithful 
men, with their loyalty to God and country, with their 
profound reverence for the Bible and their passion for 
education, have kept pace with the mighty march of 
emigration across the broad continent to the shores of 
the Pacific and far up to the frozen regions of the North ; 
and when the heroic pages of American history are 

251 



252 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

written they will be illumined with the brilliant names 
and deeds of humble home missionaries. 

It is not in my province to tell this story. It has 
already been eloquently narrated in the three historical 
addresses of yesterday afternoon, and its great truths 
were enforced and applied by the earnest appeals of 
this morning. The facts will be grandly summarized 
to-night by one who knows them well. In opening our 
centennial celebration this evening, I have but one 
thought to present, and it is the thought which has been 
weighing upon your hearts and which has been the very 
^atmosphere of the Assembly thus far. 

While deeply thankful for the signal blessings of the 
past, we all feel that the new century should be inaugu- 
rated by a distinct advance on the part of our Church 
along every line of effort ; that now and here we are to 
make the high resolve that all the resources and influ- 
ences of this great organization shall anew, and in a far 
larger measure, be consecrated to the service of God ; 
that we devoutly propose a comprehensive and positive 
forward movement, wisely planned ; and then to be car- 
ried out persistently, conscientiously, and courageously. 

The time is marvelously ripe for it. Eighty-five 
millions of souls are under our flag. Every day sees a 
thousand immigrants land on our shores. Some stay 
to fill up our already overcrowded cities ; others press 
on to the wide basin of the Mississippi and to the great 
Northwest, where, before long, the seat of empire will 
be lodged. Soon there will be no more territories or 
any frontiers, but the foes of society and of nations will 



CEXTEXSIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 253 

abound none the less, — ignorance, irreligion, infidelity, 
intemperance, immorality, anarchy, Mormonism, and 
the over-mastering greed of material things. What 
agency can bring healing to these diseases and weld 
together these heterogeneous masses? Not human 
philosophy ; not social science ; not the power of gov- 
ernment. 

There is but one solvent, only one unfailing source, 
the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the message our 
missionaries bear. They do not go out on any sectarian 
propaganda. They are not to plant a Presbyterian 
Church in small places where already four or more exist. 
They hasten on to regions destitute of religious privileges. 
The day for denominational rivalry has largely passed. 
There is a growing comity among ecclesiastical bodies 
of different names, a happy federation or cooperation 
of forces, which shall henceforth forbid all interference 
with each other's work. 

There is a manifest harmony in our own Church 
almost unparalleled ; and now, thank God, we have the 
prospect of a creed which plain people can understand 
and accept. 

All the sessions of the Assembly have been full of 
interest, but none more impressive and inspiring than 
the meetings connected with the report of the Evan- 
gelistic Committee. The duty of this committee is to 
cooperate with pastors, churches, and presbyteries in 
promoting direct religious activity and fresh spiritual 
life. It has at its head a business man, whose name is 
known in all the churches, and its plans and operations 



254 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

are directed with businesslike wisdom and thorough- 
ness. Already this year we are told that 10,000 more 
united with our churches than in the year previous. 

Nor must we forget that our home mission efforts are 
vigorously and enthusiastically aided by the Auxiliary 
Woman's Board, and that this board exhibits a gift for 
organization and executive work not surpassed by any 
agency in our church. 

But it is asserted that all this requires funds, large 
funds. No one denies it. 

If vast sums are needed in gigantic financial, indus- 
trial, and commercial schemes, combinations that com- 
mand millions promptly spring up. Why should not 
the Church of God have its great combinations ? Why 
should not sums be collected on a scale commensurate, 
in some degree at least, with the vastness and eternal 
value of the interests at stake ? The time has come for 
a new and distinctly wider conception of our work and 
a larger and more spontaneous liberality in prosecuting 
it. We have had only a meager and partial view of our 
duty and privilege. 

You have stood upon the top of a high mountain. 
Clouds and mists have prevented you from seeing more 
than the foothills and something of the plains beyond ; 
but the clouds have rolled away, the mist has lifted, and 
your wondering eyes begin to take in the immense sweep 
of the landscape, mountains and valleys and plains 
stretching away on every side to the remotest horizon. 

We stand upon the lofty heights of this centennial 
celebration. The clouds and mists of our ignorance and 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 255 

selfishness, our feeble endeavors and limited results, have 
rolled away, and we are beginning to look out upon the 
boundless extent, the beauty, and the grandeur of our 
opportunities and obligations. AVe begin to see the 
richness of our heritage and the measureless possibilities 
of the land God has called us to possess. It is the time 
for large plans and large performance. The nations of 
the earth expect it. Some are in darkness, yet know 
that we have the light, and are wondering why we do 
not bring it to them. 

Friendly lands across the sea look with jealousy or 
consternation at the swift accumulation of stupendous 
forces in this country. What would be their feeling if 
they could be told we purpose to hold these vast re- 
sources simply in trust for humanity ? 

A keen-eyed and perhaps sneering world about us is 
waiting to see what the Church will do with the wealth 
it possesses and the commission it holds ; and none 
know better than unbelievers what Christians ought 
to do. 

Our sister denominations are asking themselves 
whether " the great Presbyterian Church " is ready to 
do its large share and carry its full burden in the com- 
mon work of winning this land for Christ. 

The unevangelized masses among us of every section 
and race and tongue are, consciously or unconsciously, 
waiting to see if we are true to our professions. 

And doubtless a great cloud of witnesses are looking 
down from the heavenly heights upon this chosen arena 
and watching, with unspeakable eagerness, how this con- 



256 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

flict is being waged, — while, beyond and above, is the 
searching and yearning gaze of the King himself, to 
whom belong all the kingdoms of the earth. 

Brethren, Christian men and women, this is a divine 
call ! What shall be our answer ? 

It is one of the notable blessings granted to this 
country that we have had a succession of chief magis- 
trates who have been profoundly interested in these 
national and religious questions, but no one of them has 
been more interested or more familiar with the broad 
territory of our operations than our honored guest who 
now holds this high office. His name is a household 
word in every corner of the land, and wherever it is 
known this also is known, that it is his supreme desire 
that righteousness, — the righteousness which exalts a 
nation, — should prevail in this land, in the government 
and among the people, in every section and with all 
classes, both at home and abroad. 



ADDRESS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

President of the United States 
AT CARNEGIE HALL 



Mr. Chairman, my Friends, and Neighbors: — 

I call you this, for if this meeting means anything it 
means a communion of the embodied spirit of friendship 
and neighborliness working through the Church for gene- 
rations. I am glad to greet you to-night. I belong to 
a closely allied Church, the Dutch Reformed, and I want 
to tell you a curious incident that was related to me to- 
night by one of the two gentlemen, w T ho on your behalf, 
met me and brought me here. 

Mr. Robert C. Ogden mentioned that 260 or 270 
years ago the first church of my denomination to be 
erected here in this city was put up by a contract with 
one of his ancestors who dwelt in Connecticut. You see 
that even in those days we Dutchmen had to get the 
Yankees to do some things for us. This is in a sense 
symbolical of how much the Church has counted in the 
life of our people, that the descendants of those who 
worshiped and of those who were under contract to put 
the church up in which the worshiping should be done 
should be here to-night meeting together. 

I have another bond with you. There are not so 

17 257 



258 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

many Dutch Reformed churches in this country — not as 
many, I often think, as should be in this city — and 
during a considerable portion of my life I have had 
to go to a Presbyterian church because there was no 
Dutch Reformed church to go to. In my early years 
I went to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, of 
which the Rev. Dr. Adams was then pastor, and those 
here who remember him will agree with me in saying 
that he was one of the few men concerning whom it 
is not inappropriate to use the adjective with which I 
shall describe him, for he w^as in very truth a saintly man. 

I remember, especially, now that I have children of 
my own to care for, the view expressed by Dr. Adams 
that we should be careful to see to it that things which 
are perfectly simple to us are made clear to the children. 
Dr. Adams had a grandson, whom he found to be ex- 
ceedingly afraid of going into the church alone. Noth- 
ing could induce the boy to enter the great building by 
himself. One day the doctor took him down into the 
auditorium and up the empty, echoing aisle. The little 
fellow looked about a while, and then asked : — 

" Grandpa, where is the zeal ?" 

"The what?" queried the grandfather. 

" The zeal. Why, don't you know that the i zeal of 
thine house hath eaten me up V " The little fellow had 
heard that verse and he had got it so twisted up that he 
had decided he would rather not go into the house of 
the Lord unprotected. 

It is a pleasure on behalf of the people of the United 
States to bid you welcome on this hundredth anniversary 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 259 

of the beginning of organized home missionary work 
by the Presbyterian Church. In one sense, of course, 
all fervent and earnest church work is a part of home 
missionary work. Every earnest and zealous believer, 
every man or woman who is a doer of the work and not 
a hearer only, is a lifelong missionary in his or her field 
of labor, a missionary by precept, and by what is a 
thousandfold more than precept, by practice. Every 
such believer exerts influence on those within reach, 
somewhat by word, and infinitely more through the 
ceaseless, yet well-nigh unfelt pressure, all the stronger 
when its exercise is unconscious of example, of broad, 
loving, charitable, neighborly kindness. 

But to-night we celebrate a hundred years of mission- 
ary work done not incidently but with set purpose ; a 
hundred years of earnest effort to spread abroad the 
gospel, to lay deep the moral foundation upon which true 
national greatness must rest. The century that has 
closed has seen the conquest of this continent by our 
people. To conquer a continent is rough work. All 
really great work is rough in the doing, though it may 
seem smooth enough to those who look back upon it, or 
to contemporaries who look at it only from afar. 

The roughness is an unavoidable part of the doing of 
the deed. We need display but scant patience with 
those who, sitting at ease in their own homes, delight to 
exercise a querulous and censorious spirit of judgment 
upon their brethren who, whatever their shortcomings, 
are doing strong men's work as they bring the light of 
civilization into the world's dark places. 



260 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

The criticism of those who live softly, remote from 
the strife, is of little value ; but it would be difficult to 
overestimate the value of the missionary work of those 
who go out to share the hardship, and while sharing it, 
not to talk about but to wage war against the myriad 
forms of brutality. 

It is such missionary work, it is because of the spirit 
that underlies the missionary work, that the pioneers 
are prevented from sinking perilously near the level 
of the savagery against which they contend. Without 
it the conquest of this continent would have had little 
but an animal side. Without it the pioneers' fierce and 
rude virtues and somber faults would have been left 
unlit by the flame of pure and loving aspiration. 

Without it the life of this country would have been a 
life of inconceivably hard and barren materialism. Be- 
cause of it deep beneath and through the national char- 
acter there runs that power of firm adherence to a lofty 
ideal upon which the safety of the nation will ultimately 
depend. Honor, thrice honor, to those who for three 
generations, during the period of this people's great ex- 
pansion, have seen that the force of the living truth 
expanded as the nation expanded. 

They bore the burden and heat of the day, they 
toiled obscurely and died unknown, that we might come 
into a glorious heritage. Let us prove the sincerity of 
our homage to their faith and their works by the way in 
which we manfully carry toward completion what under 
them was so well begun. 

And now, my friends, coming up here, I made up my 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 261 

mind that I would speak to you as illustrating the spirit 
of character and decency, and of the spirit of national 
righteousness, of something that has taken place on this 
day and of something else that has happened within the 
last ten days, — of the action of this nation to-day, on this 
Tuesday, the 20th day of May, 1902, which has cul- 
minated in starting a free republic on its course in the 
world. 

That has represented four years' work. There were 
blunderings and shortcomings in that work, of course, 
and there were many of little faith who could see only 
the blunderings and shortcomings, but it represents work 
triumphantly done. And I think that the citizens of 
this republic have a right to feel proud that we have 
kept our pledges to the letter, and that we have estab- 
lished a new international precedent. 

I do not remember — and I have thought a good deal 
about it — a single case in modern times where, as the 
result of such a war, the victorious nation has contented 
itself with setting a new nation free, and fitted it as well 
as it could be fitted for the difficult path of self-govern- 
ment. 

And, mind you, that anarchy and ruin would have 
lain before the island if we had contented ourselves with 
the victories of war and had turned this island loose to 
run for itself. 

For three years the hard work of peace has supple- 
mented the work of war. I sometimes hear the army 
attacked, and I've even heard missionaries attacked. 
But it is well for us, when we have a great work to do, 



262 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

in either peace or war, that we have the army and navy 
as instruments for it. 

For three years the representatives of the army have 
done their best to build up a school system, to establish 
sanitary measures, to preserve order, and to lay the way 
open for the starting of industries — to do everything in 
their power so that the new government might start out 
with the chances in its favor. Now, as a nation, we bid 
it God-speed, and we intend to see to it that it shall have 
all the aid that we can give it. And I trust and believe 
that our people will, through the national Legislature, 
see to it very shortly that they have the advantage of 
entering into peculiarly close relations with us in our 
economic life. 

That is the deed which was consummated to-day. 
Now for the other. 

Ten days ago an appalling calamity befell another 
portion of the West Indian Islands, territory belonging 
to two different nations ; islands not under our flag, but 
their need was great, and this people saw the need and 
met it as speedily as possible. Congress at once appro- 
priated large sums of money. They were augmented 
by private gifts. And, gentlemen, I found as usual the 
army and navy the instruments through which the w r ork 
to be done could be done. The minute I wanted men 
who could drop the work they were engaged upon, 
assured that neither pestilence nor volcano would make 
them swerve from their duty, men of incorruptible 
integrity, I turned to the army and navy, and we sent 
them to the stricken island. I'm sure you all feel proud 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 263 

that ships bearing the American flag should be among 
the first — I think the very first — to take relief to those 
overtaken by so appalling a disaster. 

It is a fine thing to have at the opening of this cen- 
tury such omens of righteous acting, of international 
brotherhood ; omens of the future where a sense of duty 
to the neighborhood will extend beyond national lines, 
as the actions which culminated in the starting to-day 
of the free republic of Cuba on the paths of indepen- 
dence, and in being first to reach out a helping hand to 
those overwhelmed by disaster without regard to the flag 
to which they paid allegiance. 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S ADDRESS 

AT THE 

OVEEFLOW MEETING IN THE CENTEAL PEESBYTE- 
EIAN CHUECH 



I am glad to have a chance to say a word to you this 
evening, and I know you will pardon me if it is only a 
word, for I did not anticipate speaking at another meet- 
ing. Of course, the very first duty any nation has got 
to perform is to keep in order the affairs of its own 
household, to do what is best for its own life. And, as 
has been so well and thoughtfully said by you, Dr. van 
Dyke, in your speech this evening, the vital thing is the 
spiritual, not the material. Even Napoleon said that in 
war the moral was as to the material as ten to one, and it 
is just exactly so in civil life. I do not mean to under- 
value the material. We have got to have thrift and 
business interests and all that spring from them as a 
foundation, upon which to build, yet a nation would 
seem to be but a pretty poor building if there was noth- 
ing but the basement. 

It is an admirable thing to have great material riches 
if we do not overestimate the position that the material 
well-being should occupy in nature. It is a great thing 
to have wealth if we have an idea of the relative value 
of wealth with reference to the spirit. This sounds like 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 265 

preaching, but it is only an expression of a political truism 
if you look at it in the right way. 

We have spread during the past century over the 
whole continent. Do you realize that before the begin- 
ning of that century any one who went west of the 
Mississippi went into a foreign land ? But as we have 
expanded naturally, so it has been our good fortune that 
those who should go hand in hand with it were those 
laboring for the expansion of the Christian Church and 
all that goes with it. 

And I don't think that we realize the way in which 
the most vital need of that movement was met by those 
men who went out as pastors in the little struggling 
communities where the people were laying the founda- 
tions of what were to be the great States of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley which were to spread on to the Pacific 
Coast. The men who w T ent out in that way gave our 
people the spiritual lift that was vital to them ; that 
has made us in the end a great nation instead of a nation 
of well-to-do people. We want well-to-do people, but 
if they were the only kind we had we would come far 
short of what we have a right to demand of ourselves. 

There is a tremendous work looming up before the 
churches of this nation which the churches must do. 
Our nation has been progressing. In some ways this 
progress has been for the right, but in others for what 
we have far less cause to be proud of. The tremendous 
sweep of our industrial development has brought us 
face to face with problems which have concerned for 
years the people of the Old World. This progress has 



266 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

increased the effective power of forces for good as well 
as forces for evil. The forces for evil in our great 
cities, as those cities grow, become more and more men- 
acing to those communities. If our country is to grow, 
those forces must be met by forces equally strong for 
good. More and more in the future our churches have 
got to realize that we have a right to expect them to 
take a lead in shaping these forces for good. 

I am not going to verge on the domain of theology 
or dogma, and I don't think in this day there will be 
any dissent from the proposition that in this work-a-day 
world we must generally judge men by their fruits, that 
w 7 e cannot accept a long succession of thistle crops as 
indicating fig trees. And we have a right to expect the 
Church to set a high standard of public service through- 
out the whole land. The Church must find expression 
through the life work of its members, not only on Sun- 
days, but on week days ; not only within these church 
walls, but at home and in business. I don't know of 
any phrase that is less attractive than " Business is busi- 
ness," when it is used to mean what verges on rascality. 

We have a right to expect that you will show your 
faith by your works, and that the people who have the 
advantage of church and home life must remember that 
as much has been given them, much will be expected 
of them. We have a right to expect of you that you 
will not merely speak for righteousness, but that you 
will do righteousness in your own homes and in the 
world at large. 



RESPONSE BY THE MODERATOR 

THE 

KEV. HENKY VANDYKE, D. D., LL.D. 

Princeton, N. J. 



When the long applause following the President's 
address in Carnegie Hall had died away, a hymn was 
sung, written by Dr. H. C. McCook, of Philadelphia — 
a noble poem set to fitting music. Then Dr. van Dyke 
arose to respond for the General Assembly, beginning 
with the apt words : — 

It is not every man who has the privilege of address- 
ing two presidents in the same speech. To you, the 
President of the United States, I am charged to convey 
the respectful, loyal, and affectionate salutations of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. 
We are glad you are here. You have a knack of being 
in the right place at the right time. We are glad our 
views in regard to the great events of this day coincide 
with yours. The General Assembly has already sent this 
telegram, which I hope you will approve and sanction : 

" To T. Estrada Palma, 

" President of the Republic of Cuba, 
"Havana, Cuba: 
" The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States of America sends congratulations, 
and prays for God's blessing upon the new republic." 

267 



268 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

We are grateful, sir, for the peace and liberty enjoyed 
by our Church under the Government of which you are 
the chief executive. We have no exceptional favors 
to ask of that Government. If we had, it is not likely 
that we should get them ; for we do not believe that 
favoritism is to have a place in your administration. 
We interpret your presence here not in any denomina- 
tional or sectarian sense, but simply as an expression 
of your vital sympathy with the great work of home 
missions, — as a token of your cordial interest in the 
Presbyterian regiment of that army of the Lord which 
is trying to make and keep this a Christian land. 

To you, the President of the Board of Home Mis- 
sions, I offer sincere congratulations on the hundredth 
anniversary of that great work in which you are such 
an earnest, wise, t and successful leader. Some outline 
of the history of that work will be presented to us to- 
night. It is for me to state, in few and simple words, 
why the cause of home missions is especially dear to 
all true Presbyterians. There are three reasons which 
have peculiar force : — 

1. The Presbyterian Church as it now exists is 
largely the creation of home missionary work. In the 
rapid growth of our country the places which, fifty 
years ago, were on the frontier, and into which mission- 
aries were sent to plant the seed of true religion, have 
now become populous and powerful centers of Presby- 
terianism. The strength of our Church now resides in 
regions which, two generations ago, were, to a large 
extent, fields of missionary effort. Perhaps nine-tenths, 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 269 

certainly three-fourths, of our present working Presby- 
terian force is virtually the product of home mission 
effort in the nineteenth century. Gratitude alone would 
bind us to love the cause which has done such great 
things for our Church. But wisdom also urges us to 
make the experience of the past our guide for the future, 
and to cultivate with diligence the new fields for evan- 
gelization in our land, in order that they in turn may 
become our sources of strength in the development of 
the United States in the twentieth century. 

2. The Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America has a deep love for home missions because it 
has a peculiar relation to the great republic. It made 
greater sacrifices, in all probability, than any other 
church for the cause of liberty in the American Revo- 
lution. Its form of government has a close resemblance 
to that of our nation. A hundred and thirty years ago 
a Tory wrote of it : " The Presbyterians must not be 
allowed to grow too great; they are all of republican 
principles." The American principle of religious liberty 
is most dear to the heart of our Church. We feel also 
that Presbyterian ism has an especial contribution to 
make to the religious life of our country. A carefully 
educated ministry ; a preaching of the truths of Chris- 
tianity on the supreme authority of the word of God ; 
an orderly, reasonable, systematic presentation of the 
great fundamental doctrines of the reformed faith ; a 
plan of church organization which combines the free- 
dom of popular rule with the compactness and unity of 
an interwoven system of representative assemblies, — 



270 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

these are elements which we feel are needed in the 
healthy growth of Christianity in our country. And in 
order to supply these elements the Presbyterian Church 
must continue and enlarge the work of home missions. 

3. But the chief reason why we love this great work 
is because we feel and acknowledge the supreme debt 
which every citizen owes to his country, — the obligation 
to do the best that he can for her highest welfare, — that 
welfare which is not physical, but spiritual. Nothing 
will so surely promote the true happiness and the last- 
ing glory of our country as the spread of the religion 
of Jesus Christ among the homes and in the hearts of 
the people. For this end w r e must labor in harmony 
with all other churches of Christ, having no rivalry 
with them, but a glorious emulation in doing good. 

The work of credal revision upon which this General 
Assembly of 1902 has put its approval has a distinctly 
home missionary emphasis and bearing. It is evangelical 
and evangelistic. It sounds the note of advance along 
the old lines of Christian service to God and country. 

The Presbyterian Church has a " system of doctrine " 

in its mind, and a gospel of love for all men in its heart. 

Our hope is that the poet's prayer may be fulfilled in 

her history, 

" That mind and heart, according well, 
May make one music as before, — 
But vaster." 

So may her faithful labors help to make our land a part 
of the only kingdom whose royal rights we acknowledge, 
— the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. 



A VISION OF THE FUTUEE 

BY THE 

KEV. CHAKLES L. THOMPSON, D. D., New York, N. Y. 
(Secretary of the Board of Home Missions.) 



This is the 20th of May. To-day we furled our flag 
on Morro Castle and cheered the Cuban colors. Thus 
have we made good the promise of our martyred Presi- 
dent. We have kept our faith, and, like the apostle, 
the crown for which we look is a crown of righteous- 
ness, which must come by means of righteousness. Thus 
home missions and Americanism are one. 

For two days we have dealt with the past. Now let 
us face about. Let us get a vision of the future. We 
are on the eve of a great revival. It will be a revival 
of home missions. It must be — if we would save west- 
ern and eastern communities from the lust of mammon, 
and the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. It must 
be — if we would measure up to our new national obli- 
gations. It must be — if we would honor our position 
among the nations — if we would be the salt in the human 
lump, the sunrise of a world's gloom. 

We have expanded not in area only, though we are 
within 100 miles of semi-girdling the globe : not in 
wealth only, though we are the richest of nations ; not 

271 



272 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

in prestige merely, though the sheaves of the nations 
bow to our sheaf of commerce — but we have now a 
world-frontage for the blessing or the cursing of man- 
kind. Our expansion was not caused by the shock of 
guns. That was the occasion only. The cause is what 
Kidd called the intensity of national life. Evolutionary 
forces have been working through the centuries. From 
many fields of diffused action they have come to con- 
centrated action on these shores. 

The mixture of allied races among us, Spencer says, 
will produce a more powerful type of man than has ex- 
isted hitherto. That type is showing the signs of this 
new power. We are at the whirling center of Anglo- 
Saxon life. Astronomy tells us that vapor in action 
flung oif worlds. American life has come to its intensity, 
where it must fling oif new worlds. Expansion is not 
an election. It is not a mechanism. It is the necessity 
of intense life. The dreams of centuries condensed here 
become new possessions and new duties. 

What now is the situation ? As to geography — we 
are midway of the world. No nation ever so fronted 
nations as do we. As to population — we are the last 
result of time, the composite, slow-evolving highest type 
of man. As to principles — our ideals of civil and re- 
ligious freedom are those which sages and prophets 
longed to see and died without the sight. As to capacity 
— we first of people may be a world power. A hun- 
dred years ago the Anglo-Saxons numbered 20,000,000. 
To-day, 130,000,000— controlling directly 522,000,000. 
And the vital center of that race is on our shores. 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 273 

What now is the Christian duty of people situated as 
we are? Professor Phelps has said: "Spiritual strategy 
demands that the evangelization of this country should 
be kept ahead of every other movement for the conver- 
sion of the world." Let us abate nothing of the need 
of education, philanthropy, statesmanship — nothing of 
the claims of other nations whom we ought to bless. 
But what is the demand of strategy ? Hold your base. 
Sherman could march to the sea and back again be- 
cause he was marching 1 through vacuity. But Grant 
sat down and smoked and waited for months in front 
of Vicksburg. It had been folly to march around in 
an advance to the Gulf. The military manual says, 
" Hold your ground." The first missionary word ever 
flung into this world was, " Begin at Jerusalem, then take 
the rest of Judea. Then advance on Samaria." 

Consider, now, the home mission duty of the hour. 
We are on the verge of a new century. Let us take a 
bold look outward — not the look of Moses to a land of 
rest ; rather of some daring Cortez on some Darien peak, 
looking over the sea of movements and conflicts as wide 
as humanity. 

OUE CITIES 

And first of all, behold the Jerusalem of our polyglot, 
congested, and seething cities. Am I verging on a tru- 
ism ? Wake up, then, ye dwellers in towns, to a truism 
that is startling ! Here in New York we have been 
having a danger zone on Fourth Avenue. There was 
the rush of an ungoverned train that crushed out lives. 
There was a crash of dynamite that shattered great 

18 



274 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

fabrics. There was a sinking block of houses and flee- 
ing households — all in quick succession. We think of 
danger zones in the slums. We send a missionary 
down there to swing a red lantern. But do we ever 
think of other danger zones on Murray Hill ? Trains 
of social destruction, that plunge on regardless of sig- 
nals ; explosions that can shake our proudest houses ; 
homes that are sinking to subways where the mining has 
been silent and unknown. Perhaps the tunnel starts at 
the Battery, where it receives the European explosives ; 
but it may undermine to the proudest avenue. Let me 
show you a red light. 

Consider our second city. There are 6000 saloons in 
Chicago, employing 31,600 persons. There are 17 the- 
aters open on Sunday evening, in which, on a recent 
Sunday night, there were 17,160 men between 15 and 
45 years of age. In a single ward there are 312 houses 
of impurity, with 1708 inmates. Fifty thousand men 
are engaged in demoralizing places. Behold the red 
lantern — and it waves on your doorsteps. 

THE SOUTH 

Again, look at the Southern mountains. Read Mr. 
Roosevelt's " Winning of the West," and discover that 
the first men to tackle the wilderness beyond the moun- 
tains were not Yankees from Boston, nor Dutchmen 
from New York. They were men of the South — the 
Carolinas and Virginia ; and the President says, "Of 
course, they were Presbyterians." Of course. Presby- 
terians have ever been pathfinders. John Calvin found 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS Tib 

the path to a Christian republic. John Knox found the 
path to the destruction of prelacy among the Grampians. 
St. Patrick, that blessed old Irish Presbyterian, found 
the path of freedom on Irish moors. So, as a matter of 
course, when an empire was to be staked out beyond the 
Alleghenies, and we inquire for American pathfinders, 
in the Southwest we do not think so much of Daniel 
Boone as of Gideon Blackburn ; across the Mississippi, 
not so much of John C. Fremont as of Daniel Baker ; 
in the far Northwest, less of Lewis and Clark than of 
Whitman and Spaulding ; and in California, less of the 
" 49ers " than of the missionaries who camped on their 
trail. Not only pathfinders — they were pathmakers. 

Of course, then, when the soldiers of the Revolution 
became pioneers, it was the Scotch-Irish of the Carolinas 
and Virginia who headed the march. Down through 
the valleys of the French Broad went Sevier and Camp- 
bell, and others who had fought at King's Mountain 
and flung the British back when the Tory population of 
Carolina failed to respond. 

And now the children of those men call for help. 
They are lost among the mountains, and by little fault 
of theirs. Rather by Adam's fault. Everywhere and 
always people left to themselves are in danger of degen- 
eracy. Even a Scotchman will degenerate when he is 
abandoned. It is the duty of our Church to reclaim 
those people. 

Do you say there are other calls more urgent ? — that 
it matters little to the Republic whether a million or 
two mountaineers ever get on their feet again ; that the 



276 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

work is not strategic ? Let me remind you that they 
have held strategic positions twice already. Once in 
the closing days of the Revolution. Again, in the Civil 
War, when, in proportion, more of tall Tennesseeans 
stood up beside the flag than of any other State. They 
may hold the key again. But strategy or no — there 
are two things bigger than strategy. One is the obli- 
gation to care for our own. The other is to accept the 
mind of Christ, and up on the mountains wild and bare 
to seek the sheep that are lost. 

It were not difficult to conjure up a vision of a new 
South in the twentieth century, in which Southern 
Highlanders would spring forward to the leadership 
they held a century ago. The imperative of patriot- 
ism to-day is to rebuild the South. And millions of 
money will not do it. It calls for human bodies and 
souls. It calls for an advance of Christian education 
and Christian sympathy. 

THE WEST 

With the advance through the mountains we associate 
the opening of the West. On the flag of the ordinance 
of 1787 are these three words : " Liberty, Education, 
Religion." To these ideas the old Northwest was dedi- 
cated. Its development is the miracle of the first half 
of the century. From it the opening of the West came 
on as naturally as the morn slips into the noontide, until 
now already the Mississippi Valley is the center of our 
empire. It is the most American part of the country. 
It has been built up out of the ideals which the men of 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 277 

New England and the Middle and Southern States car- 
ried over the mountains. And while men of the East 
have yielded somewhat to European influences, the men 
of the West have kept their ideals and institutions true 
to the visions of Colonial days. It is our American 
heritage. And it is our mightiest. No other valley 
on earth drains such resources as are drained by the 
Mississippi. The center of population is near that 
river. The center of political influence seems to have 
crossed it — when a single State on its western bank 
furnishes two Cabinet officers, the leadership of the 
House, and one of the most potent voices in the Sen- 
ate. And as you look over that vast expanse, blos- 
soming in the light of our best civilization, and ask, 
" How came it ?" I reply, the " Liberty, Education, and 
Religion" emblazoned on the ordinance of 1787 have 
flung their light across the prairies. 

Is anything more needed there? Not intelligence. 
They have some of the best schools in the country. 
The public school system is unsurpassed, and colleges 
and great universities are in every State. But only 
moral principle that shall control men in public and pri- 
vate life can hold that central land true to the aims of 
its great founders. And these have not yet wholly 
triumphed. Aside from the dangers of great cities there 
are fringes of darkness that portend possible storms. 
For example : four great Territories are knocking at 
the doors of Congress. Whence the hesitation ? Chiefly 
this — unassimilated elements of population ; some of it 
is Indian, some is Mexican, some is Mormon. Congress 



278 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

hesitates. It does well to hesitate, and only the gospel 
of Christ can change the conditions that cause the hesi- 
tation. The Government once admitted a Mormon Ter- 
ritory. It has had trouble ever since. It is by no 
means sure the trouble is at an end. For a generation 
our Church and the others have been trying to change 
moral conditions. They have been working on some- 
thing harder than the granite of the Rockies. And 
now that which was only granite and resisted, takes on 
aggression, and advances. A few months ago we issued 
a statement declaring the doctrines and practices of 
Mormonism subversive of Christianity and its ambitions 
hostile to our Government. Faint-hearted politicians 
and subsidized editors made light of the arraignment. 
But the facts go on with their terrific indictment. And 
now the womanhood of the country is on its knees 
before Congress, asking for one effective barrier. Again 
Congress hesitates, and again the facts go on with their 
indictment declaring that a half-dozen States and Terri- 
tories are in the Mormon grip, while 1400 missionaries, 
with more than Jesuit zeal, are preaching the gospel of 
impurity in the older States. 

But those mountain valleys are going to be redeemed. 
The schoolhouses dot them and the mission stations are 
manned — and another generation is growing up. Moun- 
tains in all ages are made for liberty. And the liberty 
which so often has crowned their summits from Hermon 
and the Alps and the Grampians will not fail in that 
grandest and richest mountain region on earth. In 
vision I see another day. It waits on the transforma- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 279 

tion of the new century. Major Powell says there are 
100,000,000 acres waiting irrigation. That means a 
million hundred-acre farms. And the unfailing rivers 
of the mountains wait with their floods of blessing. It 
is only for the hand of man encouraged by the Govern- 
ment to direct the channels which shall transform deserts 
into the gardens of the Lord. When that time comes 
there will be an empire of the Rockies too free and too 
holy for any fanaticism to control. 

THE PACIFIC 

But a vision of the new Rockies by no means ex- 
hausts our Canaan. All the undeveloped part of the 
world (Africa excepted) is around the Pacific Ocean. 
Europe will go on in a circular way reliving its old life 
on gradually rising levels. This East will refine and 
solidify and settle down. But the moving pictures of 
the world will be on the western coast. Hence the emi- 
nence of our Pacific States. It is they which front the 
hoary paganism of China and the tyrannical absolutism 
of Russia. At last the struggle for commercial suprem- 
acy will be, not across the Atlantic, but the Pacific. 

And that coast, so set in the center of future things, 
is Christian only in name. Thank God for the signal 
lights of promise flung out by brave men and women ! 
How sturdily they hold that picket line ! The Church 
does not begin to measure her obligation to that region. 
For its own sake and so for ours, for the sake of our 
new islands, strung like emerald beads to mark the line 
where sunrise and sunset meet ; for the sake of foreign 



280 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

missions, which at that line becomes one with home 
missions — this triple plea emphasizes our present impera- 
tive duty. 

ALASKA 

We have not yet reached the end of our outlook. 
Alaska presents a dream for the twentieth century. 
Do you say that is more pictorial than strategic ? Are 
you sure ? Sure that never on the broken piers of the 
Aleutian bridge Anglo-Saxon and Slav will meet to 
contest for the supremacy of the world and deter- 
mine whether absolutism or liberty shall be man's final 
heritage ? 

And if not strategic in that sense they may be in 
another. The special agent of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment of the Government has just reported that Alaska 
will sustain a population of three millions. An empire 
as large as the three Pacific States may reach from Sax- 
man to Point Barrow. In a few weeks five stations for 
wireless telegraphy will be installed there, and across 
those islands and headlands the tingling air will carry 
the pulsations of commerce and government. Is it not 
time to install more stations for Christian telegraphy— 
that across islands and headlands from Saxman to Point 
Barrow the air may tingle with the messages from 
heaven? Is it then in vain that our heroes on the 
Yukon keep their lonely vigils ? One of them is here 
to-night. For three dreadful winters he has been ring- 
ing a church bell at Rampart. Only a few miners have 
heard. But this Republic should hear. It is the first 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 281 

faint call to the advancing pioneer lines to take that land 
in the fear of God. 

But even if there be no advancing column, are our 
brave men wasting their lives when they give them- 
selves for a handful of miners ? Not if the parable of 
the lost sheep holds — not if the ministry of the Mas- 
ter holds ! And shall we measure up to the spirit of 
the Master if we neglect even those 30,000 Indians 
stranded on shores that have become ours and cor- 
rupted by our civilization? 

THE ANTILLES 

Another picture I would throw on the screen of your 
imagination. Consider the physical formation of the 
continent and the lesson it suggests. Alone of conti- 
nents, our mountain ranges run north and south. North 
America and South America are bound together by a 
granite chain forged in the elemental fires, by which 
nature suggests a unity at once of structure and of des- 
tiny. This Western Continent is one. So far its unity 
has not been apparent. The southern half, as rich as 
the northern, has been held back for centuries. Nearly 
a half score of petty republics are staggering blindly 
toward ideals which their national origins make them 
impotent to realize ; while among them Britain, France, 
and Holland hold doubtful possessions, with Germany 
wildly striving for a foothold. And it has not been ours 
to interfere. But suddenly the Almighty took a hand 
in the conflict. The crash of our guns, shotted to 
deliver Cuba from intolerable oppression, did more than 



282 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

that for which they were sighted. They broke open 
gates of darkness on whose hinges was the rust of cen- 
turies. Suddenly the isles of the Caribbean beckoned 
for our help. And far beyond them, lands under the 
Southern Cross emerged as an opportunity for our prin- 
ciples and institutions. Shall we not enter the open 
fields, not indeed with political intent, but with those 
moral forces which have lifted the upper half of the 
continent and are capable of lifting the lower half to 
equal glory — and thus at last assert what nature said in 
the throes of geologic ages : North and South America 
are one? And if any shall say, " Religions go by 
parallels, and the form of Christianity which freighted 
the Spanish ships of the sixteenth century is as good for 
southern America as for southern Europe," I have only 
to reply : " By their fruits ye shall know them." There 
is only one reason why South American republics can- 
not thrive : A republic without an open Bible never has 
thriven. Look at the beautiful islands at our southern 
door — islands where every prospect pleases, where 
nature has been lavish to the last degree, and where the 
fruit of the soil has been ignorance, superstition, and 
immorality. From such conditions no good republic 
ever rises. Nor can we, even in our strength, afford to 
tie such weights to our feet. For however we may 
make an imaginary Panama Canal the boundary between 
us and South America, there is no such boundary be- 
tween us and the islands. They are ours, and we must 
be theirs. 

And if any shall say, " They are unimportant ; re- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 283 

serve your missionary enterprise for more worthy occa- 
sions/' let me call up a picture of to-morrow. It is 
the middle of this century. I see the commerce of the 
world in converging lines approach the Caribbean Sea. 
I see it in stately procession from northern and southern 
Europe, from North and South America, move into the 
great canal that binds two oceans — for the Pacific has 
risen in the might of her millions and beckoned the 
white fleets of the world. And as those lines converge 
toward the Caribbean, the Antilles on every side throw 
out the green flags of their summits in welcome to their 
beautiful harbors. I see along the shores of those 
islands, from St. Thomas to Cuba, prosperous cities 
enriched by the interchanges of nations and blooming 
in the light of the world's last civilization. And then 
I know the Antilles are strategic. They are the chal- 
lenging ports of a world-wide commerce and the meet- 
ing place of the nations of the earth. And then will 
we know, if we do not now, that they are the stepping 
stones for our going to republics beyond, which for their 
peace and prosperity wait the education and the gospel 
which are the corner stones of our greatness. 

THE INDIANS 

For an instant, turn to one more picture. It has 
nothing to do with national greatness, but much with 
the national honor ; nothing to do with Christian 
strategy, but much with Christian character. A quar- 
ter of a million of red men are nothing in the way of 
our march — were little when they were numerous and 



284 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

we were a few. The push of civilization in the end is 
almighty. So the Stockbridges were pushed out of 
Massachusetts, the Iroquois out of New York, the 
Cherokees out of Tennessee, the Sioux out of Minnesota, 
— remnants of many tribes imprisoned in the Indian 
Territory, or hunted through the canyons of the moun- 
tains till they disappeared. And a nation's history is its 
judgment. We must settle the account with eternal 
justice as we may be able. But it is for the Christian 
Church to walk in the steps of Jesus Christ. Those 
steps will lead us to the tents and tepees of our savages. 
And our going has been blessed. Regard it in the light 
of our mission to the Sioux, who contributed last year 
for home missions $1940 — over $1.50 per member — 
far more than the average of our whole Church. Re- 
gard it in the light of Henry Kendall College, in the 
territory, whence have gone Indian Christians and 
Indian patriots whose heroism in Cuba evoked the 
praises of our Colonel of the Rough Riders. Regard 
it in the light of the Indian ministers among the Nez 
Perces, the mission of some of whom has been like that 
of an Elliott or a Brainerd. Regard it in the light of 
our suffering Pi mas, where Christian Indians, a thousand 
strong, are bearing the burdens of poverty even unto 
hunger with heroic fortitude and Christian patience. 

Of the future in this connection there is not much to 
prophesy. Only this — it will be a dark day for the 
Christian Church when she can regard without emotion 
the fading away of those owners of our soil whose his- 
tory stretches into a mythical past ; when she can con- 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 285 

sider their future as anything less than a plea of bound- 
less pathos, to do the best she can to seek and to save. 
Is it too late to give them a home on earth ? Are the 
nomadic instincts of a hundred generations too strong 
to be overcome by any allurements of citizenship here ? 
At least, by the grace of God, we may kindle on their 
dull faces a hope of heaven, of citizenship in a country 
of which they never have been skeptical and toward 
w r hich their dulled minds doggedly point. 

OUE DUTY 

Behold thus the missionary duty of the twentieth 
century. That the world power is rapidly shifting to 
this continent is now commonly conceded. A Briton 
like Mr. Stead can speak of the United States of the 
World and not be disowned in England. A dream of 
the federation of all English-speaking peoples of the 
world, with their capitol at Washington, is by no means 
a crazy vagary. The late Frank Stockton met an 
Englishman last summer who frankly regretted the folly 
of George III. " Why," he said, " he cost us America." 
Stockton replied, " Have you thought what he cost us ? 
He cost us Britain." It may come yet, that in bonds 
of federation Britain will belong to America. But 
whether that or not — the Anglo-Saxon power is shifting 
hither. What does that portend for the world ? That 
depends, at last, on what Christianity can do for us. 

The beginning of the last century was marked by an 
awakening of righteousness. Revivals sprang up simul- 
taneously from New England to Tennessee. It was like 



286 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

another Reformation. Infidelity was shaken to pieces. 
Irreligion hid in a corner. It was meet it should be so. 
The nation had a mighty march ahead, and only as 
girded with the loftiest moral principles could she enter 
in to possess the land. Now we are at the beginning 
of another century, and we need another revival to fit 
us for the longer and grander march that is ahead. It 
must be a revival of spiritual religion, else the lower 
levels will hold us and be our destruction. Mr. Glad- 
stone, contemplating our dawning greatness, asked, 
"How is the majestic figure who is to become the 
largest and most powerful on the stage of the world's 
history to make use of his power ?" And he added : 
"We must ascend from the ground floor of material 
industry to the higher regions in which nobler purposes 
are to be wrought out." We are in danger of the 
" ground floor," in danger of failing of that " ascending 
spiral which leads from matter up to God." 

Consider how powerless is the Church on the verge 
of her great mission. In the year before this one, over 
2000 of our churches reported no additions. Of the 
5000 which received accessions almost one-half received 
five, or less. Shall I contrast this array of powerless- 
ness with the rewards of service in Alaska, where one 
missionary baptized 52 Indians ; or in Porto Rico, where 
one missionary led 100 souls to the Master? Must our 
mission fields in their poverty and isolation teach us 
the secret of power ? To your tents, O Israel ! The 
century calls for God's men. Has there been some 
revival of missionary spirit? Thank God there has, 



CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 287 

but how meager to employ our equipment, how poor in 
the presence of possibilities. We need a spirit of evan- 
gelism that, like a flying squadron, shall hasten from 
port to port with its message of life. 

Why should another century be laid under tribute 
before America, by her own regeneration, is prepared 
for the saving of the world? Some one has said that 
the martial spirit in a man or a nation is measured by 
its ability to watch opportunity, to seize opportunity, 
to crowd opportunity. We claim to have the martial 
spirit. It is in the blood of men whose fathers fought 
on all the religious battlefields of Europe. Let us show 
it then, for never was such a campaign as that for which 
the drums are beating now. We have some martial 
spirit. We have icatched the opportunity. Like Samp- 
son's fleet before Santiago, watching the smoke of ships 
within the harbor, waiting for a chance, we have watched 
the smoke of the immigration fleets and longed for a 
chance to conquer them for Christ. 

It may even be said, we have seized opportunity. 
As the Brooklyn, the Oregon, and the Texas opened 
on the flying ships of Spain, so we have sprung to our 
chance to lower across a continent the flags of ignorance, 
superstition, and sin. But we have not crowded oppor- 
tunity. See our fleet close in on the beached ships of 
Spain, nor cease its converging fire until the last flag is 
down ! A nation's everlasting gratitude to the admiral 
just laid to his honored rest ! Ah ! could we thus 
crowd opportunity ; could the martial spirit of the heroes 
of earthly battles thoroughly possess the soldiers of 



288 CENTENNIAL OF HOME MISSIONS 

Christ, how swift and strong would the columns move 
across prairies and mountains, across islands and conti- 
nents, till not one flag should fly that was not lo) r al to 
the name and the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 



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